16 Ways
16 Ways
2 INSTALL A MICROVALVE
11 DEADMAN CONTROLS
18 TECHNICAL DATA
Did any of them investigate new techniques? New equipment? New ways of working more efficiently?
No. (It’s sad but true).
Fortunately, this is now changing. By just using a few of the ideas in this booklet, you should be able to
improve your production and efficiency. It means decreasing your costs and dramatically improving your
profits.
The majority of this booklet summarized in one sentence: Increase your nozzle pressure and decrease
your abrasive consumption. It makes all the difference to your efficiency.
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1
USE A VALVE WITH
PRECISION CONTROL
MANY BLASTERS HAVE FOUND THEIR BLAST
POT LASTS UP TO 3 TIMES LONGER BETWEEN
REFILLS USING THE MICROVALVE, WITHOUT
ANY DOWNTURN IN BLASTING SPEED!
CAUTION
This valve is becoming so popular that cheap copy valves are
appearing. Beware, they may be made of inferior metals and
wear out fast. Insist on genuine BlastOne MicroValves. Heavy duty and long
lasting nipple
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3
USE A BULL HOSE TO
SUPPLY AIR TO YOUR POT
INCREASING YOUR PRESSURE – INCREASES
YOUR PROFITS
Do you use a big nozzle to blast with, but only
supply your blast pot with air from a jackhammer
hose? Or you may have two jackhammer hoses?
This is no good.
But, we do have good news! Overnight, you can
double your blasting rate. Big nozzles need big
hoses.
For any bigger than a 7/16” (no. 7) nozzle, you
need a 2 inch (50mm) ID bull hose to supply air to
your blast pot. Any smaller air delivery hose will
simply be choking the air supply. And you lose
valuable air pressure.
Important note: Watch your hose fittings. It’s no good fitting
a nice big bull hose to the pot if you’ve still got hose fittings
or pipe fittings that are smaller in the bore than your hose
size. A 2” bull hose should be connected to a 2” outlet on the
compressor and use large bore fittings right through.
CHECK
CHE
CK
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5
BLAST WITH A LOW DUST
ABRASIVE
WHY GMA GARNET WILL WORK BETTER FOR YOU
GMA GARNET
GMA Garnet is dense (heavy), and hard so it doesn’t create dust clouds
An air-fed helmet is designed to protect your life. This helmet has an excellent wide vision,
It should prevent you breathing any dust, protect combined with less weight on the head and neck.
your face from flying particles and offer some By using pillow foam as head support (instead of
hard hat protection. But, wearing a helmet on the old ‘hard hat’ suspension), these are the most
your head for hours, can give you a headache! comfortable and quietest helmets ever used.
Leading blasters are now using the extra You’ll find operators blast for longer and don’t feel
comfortable Nova 3 helmet. so worn out, when they wear RPB Nova air-fed
blast helmets.
REPLACEABLE AIR
INLET FITTING
MOULDED HEAD LINER
PADDING
REFLECTIVE AND
HIGHLY VISIBLE
SUPER-PROTECTIVE
HELMET SHELL
COMFORT-FIT SIDE
REMOVABLE VISOR PADDING
HELMET HYGIENE
TEAR-OFF LENS SYSTEM
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7
ENSURE YOUR COMPRESSOR
IS BIG ENOUGH
HOW MUCH AIR DO YOU NEED TO RUN A
BLAST MACHINE?
The table above shows the amount of air each air-fed helmet PLUS a 50% reserve to allow for
nozzle size needs when the nozzle is new. nozzle wear.
But what happens when the nozzle starts to wear (Example: A new No.7 nozzle needs 312cfm PLUS
a bit? You are going to need more and more air to 20cfm for helmet PLUS 50% reserve of 155cfm:
maintain the same pressure at the nozzle. (i.e. after
Minimum compressor size required = 490cfm).
2-3 weeks).
Many blasters have said – “I could blast a lot
When you buy an air compressor for your blast
faster when my nozzle was new – but now I’ve lost
package, you should allow sufficient volume for the
pressure…”
nozzle (from the table below) plus 20cfm for your
You need to be a mighty big man of muscle to This special hose is made of high-quality rubber
continually hang onto some of those blast hoses to maintain life, but with thinner walls to make it
these days. lightweight and flexible. ‘SupaLife’ whip hose has
a large bore, so you don’t lose pressure to the
By ensuring the blast hose is four times the
nozzle.
diameter of the nozzle sure helps keep the
pressure up, but it becomes very hard to Your operator will find it easier to blast, much
continually hold. We recommend you fit a 20ft less tiring on the back and easier to get into
(6m) SupaLife whip hose between your blast tough spots.
hose and nozzle.
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9
SCREW IN A LIGHTWEIGHT,
LONG LIFE BLAST NOZZLE
THE BUSINESS END OF YOUR BLAST HOSE
All blast machines must have remote controls For FASTER and SAFER control, many blasters
(sometimes called dead man controls) which are now fitting:
quickly stop the blasting when the control handle
a. COMBO VALVE
is released. (Many people have been injured in
For single outlet blasters for normal blasting
this Industry from poorly designed or even non-
operations. This is a revolutionary fast-
existent deadman systems.)
depressurization remote control valve that
What have you got fitted onto your blast pot? is safer and trouble-free. It has a very large
Does it start and stop very quickly when you want exhaust port which rapidly shuts down
it to? On some systems the deadman DELAY blasting when you release the deadman
time is around 15-20 seconds before the pot handle.
stops blasting out grit (That seems like about 15
b. THOMPSON VALVE SYSTEM
minutes if you’ve got trouble.)
For spot blasting operations or multiple
Safety is not the only advantage of a FAST remote outlet blasters. This system offers almost
control system. instantaneous on/off by immediately shutting
off the abrasive and air flow, leaving the blast
• It saves you time waiting for shut-down and
pot pressurized. It saves a lot of time and
start-up
money (and by fitting your ‘Thompson Valve’
• It can save you a lot of abrasive with the optional ‘remote abrasive cut-off
• It will save you over-blasting or blasting switch’ installed at the nozzle, you can cut off
inappropriate areas the abrasive and blow down the workplace
with air only at the simple flick of a switch,
anytime)
The Combo Valve and the Thompson Valve
are both fail-safe valves, which automatically
shut off if there is an air supply problem.
Very important feature on a blast pot! If you
are working over 100 feet away from your
blast machine, you should seriously consider
installing 12-volt electric remote controls to
reduce the distance delay time.
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11
LET’S LOOK AT YOUR
BLAST POT
DOES YOUR POT HAVE ANY RESTRICTIONS?
The heart of your blasting system is your blast DOES IT HAVE AN ERGONOMIC DESIGN AND
pot. You should carefully consider the following COMFORTABLE LOADING HEIGHT?
points because a lot of blast pots that have When you want to shift your blast pot around, you
been sold have been poorly engineered and can sure don’t want to end up with it on top of you or
cost you more money to run. How a blast pot is end up in the hospital with back problems. Well
manufactured can affect your profitability. engineered pots are designed to balance on their
wheels to aid movement. They also should be the
HAS IT GOT UNRESTRICTED PIPING? right height to load comfortably.
OK, so we now have air delivered into the pot
In this leading design, the pot doesn’t put any
with 2-inch bull hose and the air abrasive
weight on its wheels when being used. The
mixture goes out in a 1-¼ blast hose. But what
wheels only touch the ground when it is tilted
size pipe fittings have you got on your blast pot?
slightly.
Do you choke your air supply by trying to make
it go through ¾ or 1-inch fittings or pipes? A
good blast pot has large bore pipe fittings with a
minimum of elbows and bends.
Get a needle pressure gauge and compare
the air pressure just before the pot and then
just after. You should have a maximum of 3 psi
pressure drop across the pot.
Warning: Some manufacturers’ blast pots come
new with a 10 psi drop because of complicated
pipe and valve configurations.
** Remember, 1 psi = 1.5% performance drop
*** This 10 psi drop is immediately making your
blasting efficiency drop by 15%!
(eg: If you could blast at 300 ft²/hr at 100 psi,
your production would drop to 250 ft²/hr at 90 psi.)
Fit valves and pipework that do not restrict the LOW RESTRICTION POT
makes a faster blaster
air flow.
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13
WIND UP YOUR
PRESSURE
YOU WILL BE SURPRISED AT THE INCREASE
IN PRODUCTION
Many blasters use diesel air compressors to purification system will remove oils, water,
supply blasting and breathing air to the air-fed particles, tastes, odors and toxic gases from the
helmet. breathing air.
That same air compressor that is sucking air for Not only will it be safer for your blasters, but it’ll
breathing is pumping out carbon monoxide in also keep OSHA very happy!
large volumes from the diesel engine exhaust.
If the carbon monoxide is drawn back into the air
intake of the compressor, you can poison your
blaster (You can also poison your blaster if the
compressor overheats. Overheated compressor
oil can produce carbon monoxide gas. Carbon
monoxide is an odorless, deadly gas).
Now, OSHA’s Standard 1910.134 (i) (7) requires us
to do something about this...
“For oil-lubricated compressors, the employer
shall use a high-temperature or carbon monoxide
alarm, or both, to monitor carbon monoxide
levels.
If only high-temperature alarms are used, the air
supply shall be monitored at intervals sufficient
to prevent carbon monoxide in the breathing air
from exceeding 10ppm.”
For safety’s sake, we recommend the installation
of a carbon monoxide alarm and purification
system. RPB GX4 GAS MONITOR
Monitor up to 4 gases simultaneously
These systems will continuously monitor the
breathing air for carbon monoxide while the
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15
USE A COMMUNICATION
SYSTEM
A GOOD COMMUNICATION SYSTEM CAN IMPROVE
NOT ONLY EFFICIENCY BUT ALSO SAFETY
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TECHNICAL DATA
ID OD ID OD
mm inch mm inch mm inch mm inch
13 ½” 33 1 13 ½” 30 1
19 ¾” 40 1 ½” 19 ¾” 33 1
25 1 48 1 ⅞” 25 1 40 1 ½”
32 1 ¼” 55 1 32 1 ¼” 48 1 ⅞”
38 1 ½” 60 2 ⅜” 38 1 ½” 55 2
5mm 1 ¼” 32mm
¼” 6mm 1 33mm
⅜” 10mm 1 40mm
11mm 1 ¾” 44mm
½” 13mm 1 ⅞” 48mm
⅝” 16mm 2” 51mm
¾” 19mm 2 55mm
1” 25mm 2 ⅜” 60mm
1 30mm 2 ½” 64mm
DISCLAIMER: The performance characteristics provided in this brochure only serves as a guide and that the results can vary widely on every project. Let BlastOne
assist you on using the right abrasive and the right equipment for every project.
While care has been taken in compiling these notes, no responsibility is accepted by the compiler for any damage or loss, caused to anyone or any company accepting
the advice or suggestion contained herein. It is your responsibility to be aware of regulations which Local, State, or Federal Government authority may impose.
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