I do quite a bit of sculpting (skeletonizing) on my casting reel seats and thinking about sand-blasting them to get a better finish than I get by sanding/buffing. Any suggestions on what gun I need and type of grit?

Wouldn't glass beading be a better option? Just a thought. Harbor Freight has a portable one that will use many kinds of media including pecan shells.

Thanks Spenser. I don't anything about glass beading, but I'll look into it.

When I worked for Lockheed, one of my jobs was to prepare aluminum parts for painting (which I also did). We used a rectangular trash can, with a tall lid. One side of the lid had a square cut out of it, and a plexiglass iwndow glued over the opening. Inside were fine glass beads, and a wire hanger to hold the items that were to be treated, and the bead blasting gun. It was used to remove any and all corrosion from the metal before anodizing, and painting. We also sand blasted very large parts with garnet. Sand blasting creates a rough surface, while bead blasting gives you a much smoother surface. Caution! If you bead blast, you must wear food eye protection that seals to the skin, as a glass bead in the eye is very, very irritating, and impossible to see without dye, and special light so that it can be removed. I know this from experience.

For your purpose, as reel seats, and reel feet are made from aluminum, bead blasting will give you superior results. You can use the same gun as you would use for sand blasting.

Tight Lines and frisky fish.

RJF

Jim,
With the little experience I have with media-blasting, I would suggest using walnut (or pecan) shells. Glass beads are fairly aggressive and will probably leave a rougher finish, although you may prefer that. As with many rod building operations, test, test and test again prior to attacking the actual part. Hopefully others more qualified will answer to assist you further.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Mark Talmo Wrote:
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> Jim,
> With the little experience I have with
> media-blasting, I would suggest using walnut (or
> pecan) shells. Glass beads are fairly aggressive
> and will probably leave a rougher finish, although
> you may prefer that. As with many rod building
> operations, test, test and test again prior to
> attacking the actual part. Hopefully others more
> qualified will answer to assist you further.

This sounds like a great idea. How to you pulverize the shells into a blasting medium?

Tight lines and frisky fish

RJF

Don't know if your familiar with reloading ammo. One of the steps is cleaning the fired brass cases. You use a tumbler with either corm cob or walnut hull media to clean and polish the brass. Walnut is more for polishing. The tumblers come in various sizes. A small one is all you would need for a few reels seats. All you need to do is drop the seats in fill with media, walnut would be the way to go for your application. Plug it in leave it run. Brass usually will shine up in four or so hours if not very dirty. Would think a reelseat would take way less time. Probable check every hour. You can pick up a tumbler from cabelas or basspro for about 50 bucks or so.

You can buy the mediums in bags, whichever you use. They've used nut shells to clean things including jet and gas turbine engines for decades.

Thanks, guys. Btw, the reel seats are plastic (polymer).

I am not sure if sandblasting works on polymer. I would be interested if any one has any experience with sandblasting polymer.

Jim,
Spencer is correct; one cannot practically produce their own media. Another point to consider is the air pressure used. I strongly suggest purchasing a blasting setup with adjustable air pressure or purchase an additional pressure regulator; different air pressures will produce different results.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

Redoing the deck on sportfishing boats is often done annually. I recall a sportboat in San Diego using course walnut shell bits mixed with either paint or FG resin. Great traction but @#$%& to pay if you somehow did and hit the deck. Pretty damn aggressive stuff. As for using it for blasting, I will defer to the knowledge of the others that posted responses. It just seems extra aggressive to me. That would also be dependent on the courseness of the shell bits I suppose as well as the desired results.

Personally I would opt for tumbling in an application such as you are needing

Ron Weber

Ron,
tumbling would be a challenge since these are completed rods.