Bolens Diablo Rouge and Hus Ski Discussion Forums

Hi all,

Just spent the better half of three days working on chassis parts for a number of restorations and spare units. In the past, I've used a grinder to remove most of the paint on chassis, hoods, sled buckets and handle bars, then dealt with the scratches left behind from the grinder. I've always hated this part. Grinding is messy and when done, you still need to sandblast to finish the job.

Call me stupid

This time I went right for the sand blaster and am now wondering why I've ever grinded. An ungrinded surface takes no more time to sandblast than a grinded surface and the results speak for themselves.
This is so much easier, it almost make the job painless other that pooping sand for a few days. Just kidding, no pooping sand.

Hey Bruce, I'd say from my experience at work sandblasting is by far the best way to get right down to bare metal. Once you have it all blasted, as I'm sure you know already, you should get you're primer or paint on, as the bare metal will rust quickly.
About how much time does it take to sandblast the chassis in the picture? Also what's the cost for the type of sand you used in you're blaster? I've got one just about the same as the one in the picture, do they work well?

BOTTOMS UP from Horicon, WI

If you have a large air compressor that can keep up, it takes about 30 to 40 minutes to blast the chassis. Of course, the set up and take down / clean up take longer than that. Therefore, if I have to blast, I blast a bunch of stuff at the same time. Sorta like Barrie's theory that rebuilding four Diablos at once is far quicker than rebuilding four Diablos separately. How true that is.

I bought this sandblaster from Harbor Freight. It works very well and does not warp our delicate pieces. Again, need to have a large enough compressor. A smaller compressor works, but you need to wait for it to catch up which works too if that is all you have.

With the tarp and picking up the sand to reuse, this past weekend I blasted one chassis, three hoods, two handle bars and a ski seater bucket and used less than a 50# bag of sand. Not sure what the bag of sand is worth as I got some from a friend.

And yes, they all got painted quickly. When they are this clean, a damp day later they can be rusty again.