Dry Ice Blasting - Comments and Experince please

[RGAZ]

FBBO restorers,

I have seen a lot of discussion on media blasting, "sand" blasting, bead blasting, soda blasting, and even dipping, does anyone have some insight into dry-ice blasting?

I have seen this demonstrated in the industrial world and I now am starting to see the cost come down where it might be a viable alternative for restorers. From what I saw it had some pros and cons(if you know what you are doing):

Pros:
No media to clean up. Just what comes off.
Can do rust.
cools the surface as it is applied (warp worse?)
leaves no residue, literally absolutely nothing.

cons:
Suffocation (that would suck)
short usage time of dry ice
cost
equipment appears expensive and complex.

Does anyone have experience with it or comments for discussion?

Thanks,
Randy

 

[Stumper]

I had it done to a large section of an industrial dryer years ago and it worked out great. While there is nothing to clean up from the dry ice since it evaporates you will still have the paint / rust from the metal cleaning. I forget the cost difference but it was worth it for us to reduce the cleanup costs and keep protect bearings.

 

[RGAZ]

Hmmm. Thanks Stumper.

I was really expecting more conversation. It must not be as common as I was thinking.

Bump for another shot at more input.

Randy

 

[Cranky]

Would it be correct to assume you've done an internet search on it? Seems to be a lot of info about it out there....and sounds like a cool way to do it....no pun intended Maybe Donny will chime in on it?

 

[satman72]

Interesting concept. I hadn't heard about this before, but after seeing this post, and then doing a google search, it seems that there is a local company that does this. I'm going to get in touch with them and see if they could/would do a car. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[Doright]

I have seen it and was looking into it at one time that was a long time ago

As I recall The machine to make the dry ice Pellet chips was the Major expense after that hook up your Liquid Carbon Dioxide and hook it all up to your blaster witch was another one of their inventions and off ya go.
One of the nice things was this thing Made dry ice pellets as fast as this blaster needed it no loading basically pull the trigger and go nice set up very expensive.
Even with the technology reaching 10-20 years old now I still don't think its affordable enough for the automotive world yet.

When I was seriously looking into a machine I was quoted something so outrageous in price I cant even talk about it If you find any thing more about it or if they have come down to reality on prices I would still be interested myself.

 

[satman72]

OK, so I talked to the local company, and basically.... not reccommended for cars. What I was told is that the media is too soft to remove automotive paint. It(the paint) tends to "stick" to the substrate much better than other paints. It would be much cheaper to soda blast, or use other media, or even dipping.

Now, I don't know if it was just this company's methods and/or equipment that was the limitation or if it's a limitation of the method itself. That I wasn't told.

 

[440ronnie67]

Works great little to no clean up, fully adjustable, doesn't hurt chrome or glass, doesn't warp panels like other abrasives.

 

[copper67440]

We have a portable ice blaster we use at work for tooling clean up. I work at Ford at the Dearborn Truck Plant body shop. It's used to des lag weld fixtures. The ice comes in big roll around containers already palletized. Dump it in the hopper and hook up your air, pull the trigger and blast. I stripped an intake manifold years ago here and it came out beautiful. I have no idea what the machine cost.

 

[Doright]

If it can take Slag off of welding fixtures it can cut rust and paint

 

[ZR9B]

For what its worth I have a machine repair buddy that bought one to strip the inside of a building, said he loved it...it is or was for sale...never asked the price

 

[Doright]

OK well I found a bunch more a couple companeys selling them and a source for used equipment looks like 30K get you into it with used equipment now we need to know if it really does cut rust???? cant find a good video of it in action

For sale
http://www.hotsypacific.net/Dry-Ice-Blasters.aspx#

for sale
http://www.coldjet.com/en/company/customers.php

Used machines including Ice makers
http://www.dryiceclassified.com/used.htm#Ice Tech KG 30 Blasting System

Im not sure but they don'[t talk to much about compressors Im sure you gonna need a REAL compressor to run these types of machines better get the Vasalin out for a real compressor that aint gonna be cheap.

 

[Donny]

No idea myself, heard of it, seems like it would be good in some applications.

 

[jeremyb]

We just demo'd a machine last week actually. Unless you just want to blow money, this isn't the way for automotive applications. This is GREAT for industrial and things like inside of public places and schools because like said, there is no clean up really. Only what comes off.

However, on automotive finishes, it does little to nothing. It will take the top coating off, but when you get to the thicker and more durable primers, it hardly touches them. The cost of firing the rig up, is $300-$400 buck an hour. Compared to rate of regular blasting which can vary from $100 bucks an hour to $200. Do the math. It would take twice as long to do it with the dry ice.

Another problem you have is the dry ice itself. You order it straight from the manufacturer and it comes in a big cooler. Once it is dropped where you want it, you have 8 hours to use it. Now I am sure they have some coolers that you could keep onsite to plug in, but not sure what that would cost and if it would be cost effective.

The concept is cool and has a lot of uses, but automotive just isn't one of them. At Least not from what I saw at the moment. You can't compare industrial use to automotive use and vise versa.

 

[snakeyes]

[video]http://gendco.com/?p=dry-ice&n=dry-ice-blasting-videos[/video]

 

[Doright]

I kinda figured it super expensive to run even if you have your own Ice machine maker which would be the way to go have both.
15-20k for machine 15-20k for Ice maker and another 5-20k for a good air compressor and you got a good blasting business

From what I seen in those videos this is the way of the future for Blasting gentlemen.
I don't think its gonna be OK on Automotive sheet metal they are using way to much air pressure but for other things ya that's pretty good.

 

[Tony]

We just had a dryer tunnel cleaned at work, worked great for removing dirt and curd but didn't touch the glavanizing. I don't see it removing paint or rust.