Vaporhone use / maintenance

Metal Shop
#1

Folks I’m a newbie member, I have several motorcycle parts / aluminum that I need to Clean up on the 800. Have read prior threads.

I also have a couple of magnesium front hubs that I’d like to do as well. Is that okay? Not grinding the magnesium just blast so I can paint.

I’m willing to adopt the machine care and feeding. I’ve been to the VHT website, doesn’t look hard.

Can anyone who knows the machine and DMS process meet up with me and show me where the media is? Or reply here, send me an email.

Also do we have only aluminum oxide? Any glass beads? I’d prefer glass to finish cases and hubs.

I plan to go try it out tomorrow morning early 2/16 on some hubs and triple trees.

#2

I cant be up there this weekend. We used to use Glass bead but it breaks down so quickly. Aluminum oxide we can get a couple months out of it. Glass bead, not so much. @rlisbona was talking about doing some parts in it as well. It’s not difficult to do a water & media change. Aluminum Oxide has gone us recently in price, we used to get it a Northern for 40-45$ for 25lbs. Last time I bought it, it had went to 73$ for 25lbs. It takes 25lbs to do a media switch, dont add more than that.

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#3

Do we have any spare media?

#4

I cant say for sure. I’m not sure if @yashsedai bought extra last time. I think he did.

#5

If we dont have any more, let me know, I’ll pick some up tomorrow

#6

Where would this spare media be hanging out? I can go look.

#7

Look for a white 2 gallon bucket, that’s what it normally comes in. I’ve see it under the tables and in the teacher cabinet. I haven’t seen some recently though.

#8

I’ll go back again to check the teacher cabinet. Somebody was in there welding. And I’ll see what’s in the smaller buckets. I spotted the big bucket that was grease, and there were a couple of small buckets, but I didn’t check for contents.

#9

They look like this,

https://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200136724_200136724?cm_mmc=Google-LIA&utm_source=Google_LIA&utm_medium=Abrasive%20%2B%20Sand%20Blasters%20>%20Blasting%20Media&utm_campaign=ALC&utm_content=S1585&gclid=Cj0KCQiAyp7yBRCwARIsABfQsnTKlBTXr25JNUxkrly-T5Y-DpQAYoFP55UJU7G2BR0fVmlggukdhCwaAhIgEALw_wcB

It is a small bucket about 14inches tall.

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#10

And now I’ve got ads from Northern Tool on my Facebook…

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#11

They aren’t perfect, but something like this:

Or pfBlockerNG installed on a pfsense firewall can really cut down on the amount of cross site tracking cookies.

2 Likes
#12

Found an empty white bucket. Unless it’s in a locked cabinet there is no spare media.

The aluminum oxide in the machine cleans okay, but leaves a pretty rough surface on aluminum. Probably great for steel.

I would like to use some of glass beads at some point to finish off the aluminum parts. I’ve signed up for maintenance / meeting day, hope to see some of you then. Perhaps figure out how to get rid of water and where everything is.

#13

for those looking for fresh media, last I recall there was a bucket at the front of the room behind the temp welding curtains.

#14

I found a full bucket up by the rack of metal shop’s metal. There are 3 various buckets on the floor there, and one of them is full. Of something. It didn’t look opened, so I didn’t double-check what it was full of.

@yashsedai – I’m thinking one full bucket should be sufficient for a while? I checked the teacher’s cabinet and there was nothing there.

#15

It is one bucket to 25ish gallons of water.

#16

To clarify, it uses one bucket per media change.

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#17

I used the vapor hone today on a large bit of aluminum, and it was working fine.

However, I did note that the previous user did not backpurge it, or it at least needed it the moment I started.

This makes a large difference in performance, and I wonder if not enough people are doing it. To backpurge the unit press the nozzle against a glove and activate it for a few seconds. You can usually feel the pump kicking out stuff after the first second or so. This clears blockages in the system.

-Jim

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#18

Jim, I’m glad you mentioned that because I have done that a couple of times on accident and noticed an increase in performance, But I was unaware that that was an actual pseudo maintenance thing.

I’m a little more used to the dry sand / glass / walnut shell media blast that doesn’t seem to require that.

Thanks!

#19

I do it about every 5-10 minutes of continuous operation. I don’t know why the wet blasters do it in particular, but it was something that was pointed out when we got the unit. It’s on the instructions attached to it.

#20

Fair enough.

Thinking about it. It almost sounds like sand on a beach.
When you get around the dry area, it’s very free-flowing and smooth when you run your hand through it.
Add water to that it is starts clumping up which would suggest that it would Clump and clog certain areas and a smaller confined space like the vapor hone.

So thinking about it like that, It makes sense to me.