Harbor freight sand blasting cabinet front load door modification

Batting around the idea of modifying my hf blast cabinet so I can front load items into it. I noticed it was very difficult to maneuver the eagle and octopus sculptures in through the side door and would have much rather had a large front loading door.

I'm thinking of modeling mine after this cabinet and cutting the front panel and top panel out and adding hinges on the top. Then riveting on extra sheet metal to the inside of the cabinet so the metal overlaps with the new front door and then using weather seal tape to seal it up. Maybe add some gas struts as well to be fancy and have it stay open during loading.

Any thoughts on the feasibility of this idea? I haven't seen anyone else do this mod on Google and am wondering if thats because there was a gaping flaw I'm not seeing or just nobody had that idea?

 

Our cabinet has a one piece hinged front which is useful an a lot simpler than the above. That said we have a filter system on it so sealing isn't so much of an issue.

Have you thought about automotive door seal profiles, they can take up a lot of slack and from memory are available of the roll for old model cars.

 

Any chance of pictures of your setup?

I was also thinking of keeping it 1 piece rather than doing a joint like the photo. Seems unnecessary. But I couldn't find a photo of any cabinets like that.

I haven't looked at automotive sealing. Is it significantly better than weather sealing tape from the hardware store?

 

No problem, I'll take some photos today, if I can dry my phone out.

 

https://www.steelerubber.com/universal-landing

May be something there

 

The older style door seals can take up a lot of slack plus you have a stiff bead that will tap onto the sheet metal cutout for mounting.

For what it's worth here is our cabinet, sorry for the picture quality!

 

Hmm. Thats a nice cabinet. Not sure I can do that angle but it seems like all cabinets need an overlapping surface for the door to seal against. Then I'll need a good set of latches to keep pressure on the seal.

 

We have a filter system on that so it never gets latched as very little escapes (The gloves are shot anyway so it would never seal!)

The body is heavy fibreglass which kind of helps with the weight keeping things closed.

 

I've spent hours dorking around with my hazard fart cabinet when it was new and it still leaks like a bitch. The best way to solve the leak issue I've found is mount the sob of wheels and say screw it! Park it near the door and when you want to blast something, wheel it's sorry ass outside!

Zap, I built a 4ftx 4ft by 3feet deep cabinet when I lived in florida out of PARTICLE BOARD! The entire rt side opened up. It had no scoop in the bottom and I just left a small shovel inside and blast out of a bucket. I set parts on a little 8inch tall metal grate I made. I swear that box was better than any modified HF cabinet... It sure as hell leaked a lot less! The thing was so friggen big, the particle board still looked new inside after abusing it for 3years doing a ton of powder coating wheel work. I used thick weather stripping and small screws to keep it attached to the wood. When I moved, I broke it apart and fed it to the trash man.

 

I have found that the best way to seal the cheapy blast cabinet I have.....Duct tape over the seam and make sure the shopvac is running on the exhaust port.

 

Make a cabinet from something called an IBC tote, you can find them on craigslist and such used and cheap, you can flip it upside down and have a sand drain, and with a little trimming a plastic pallet will fit inside.

I really rely on my sandblaster, it's a necessary evil, I went from a HF to a big 4ftx4ft dual man setup. I never use the other side, so I put duct collection through the arm holes on the other side. Lately I did some work and converted it to a gravity feed, that gets about 4 times more sand through the gun, night and day difference, and of course an after market gun, that's been mod'ed too. Give you a few ideas to play with.

Good Luck

 

And how Aaron do you "glue" an ibc back together after you cut one to size??? In my neck of the woods, they are 250bucks all day.

 

They are made from HDPE (i think), so you can either screw, rivet, they don't really glue because the type of plastic, but you can heat weld, but that's tricky, heat spot weld might be a good idea (vice grips and a torch). The do heat form well. I have 2 of them, one is a waste water evaporation tank, and the other a spare tank that I curled the entire edge over the metal cage, probably use that for sand storage. The cage really adds to it because it really helps hold the shape. All you really need to do is remove one side (front) and make a door, that can easily be a combination of wood and plastic. I really considered it, but then I just ponied up for my blaster.

This video makes a washout station thing, so he's pretty close just need to button it up a little for sand.

Having something that big is really nice, IBC offers a lot of SF for the cost, if you flip it, the sand can flow to a bottom tank/bucket for suction back into the gun.

I don't know exactly in Texas where you are at, but in Houston you can get used ones for $75 you can find them here: ibctoterecycling.com you don't need a food safe one, those cost less.

Good Luck

 

Prices from a seller in my town as posted on FB Marketplace.

300 Gallon IBC Totes starting at just $30!/ $35 uncleaned /$60- cleaned 3x, had mineral spirits in them /$100- Food grade totes, perfect for drinking water.

I may have to look into building a blaster.

 

I found a few for sale for 100bucks if you want to clean them out from god knows what. I watched that video. Great the guy cut some aluminum and plastic. We use them for temporary jet fuel storage during maintenance. I've never looked at one and thought I'd like a 300gallon tank in my garage! I just dumped a really nice 18" bandsaw to recover valuable real estate in the garage. Without a solid plan to reattach it together after you hack 3/4 of these monster tanks away, I kinda think it would make a shitty sandblast cabinet. SO I'll just continue to bitch about my HF box and wheel it outside where it can piss glass beads all over my driveway. I'm just too busy to build a proper box out of steel.

 

Here's another method I hadn't seen. Not perfect, but not bad either.

 

I probably need to pick up a couple of those to store rain water. Prices here are mad. I paid $72 last month for water and sewer. And I've got a metal roof on my house and garage so they runoff should be clean.

Would be nice to use it for the garden at the very least.

 

72 buck water bill? Wanna trade? When I ran my sprinkler 3 times a week for 10mins per section, my water bill was $250! I finally said BS and shut that sucker off. After doing the math, I can rip out my yard and lay down new bermuda every 2years! You know what happens Mike is these IDIOTS beat the gotta save water drum so loud, they forget they are in the BUSINESS to sell water! My town did this and now they sell way less water and had to jack the rates to the moon. Our town has water main breaks every month and now no money fix the broken stuff.

My city gave me a new big green recycle bucket. It's never seen a piece of recyclable trash EVER! When it rains, we wheel it to a corner on the roof and it fills up with water. We use that water to maintain a nice section of grass for the pouch to piss on. If I was building a new home, I would sink a tank in the ground to collect rain water for lawn use. Electricity is cheap, the trick is not burying the pump where you can't get to it for maintenance and repair. I bet you could bury an IBC, they are pretty tough and cheap.

 

Jason, what HP compressor do you recommend for small scale bronze casts? Roy