soda blaster

[mudbug]

I just borrowed a soda blast machine from our local supplier (he's hoping I will buy it) and it just might do the job for me. I am looking for a way to clean hard water deposits from brick, vinyl and steel sided buildings, and I have a historic building in town here that needs a serious face washing...

Anyway, brought this unit home and played with it a bit tonight, and I'm not really impressed. I tried washing some of the water spots off the windows in my garage. Now, granted, they've been there for 20 years, some of them, but it didn't make a dent. When I turned the soda WAY up, it did remove some of the dinginess from the aluminum front on my horse trailer, but...

Sharing any experiences with a soda blaster would be appreciated- I have the whole side of this old building available to practice on, so I can try out just about anything anyone suggests, so long as it doesn't involve buying anything. I would like to get the most out of it so I can make an informed decision about whether I should buy it, or maybe even make one of my own. Am I expecting too much of it?

 

[grasshawg]

Never tried it. Probably never get the chance. But it must be effective. That's what they used to overhaul the Statue of Liberty. Maybe you did something wrong?
Randy

 

[mudbug]

It couldn't possibly be anything I did wrong! I think the TDSs in our water here are just way worse than anyone else's.

By the way, Grasshawg, what is the story behind your username?

 

[Revive]

Which soda blasting machine?

I've used two different tools for soda blasting. One that attaches to your dual wand.Looks like an x-jet. Works quite well for removing mustaches off buildings.Down side,uses a lot of soda.The other is called a wadu. Used it to strip the antifowling off a 37 foot sailboat.I'm going next week to see some guys strip a bulldozer using the dry method.

 

[grasshawg]

It couldn't possibly be anything I did wrong! I think the TDSs in our water here are just way worse than anyone else's.

By the way, Grasshawg, what is the story behind your username?

LOL! Nothing special, really. When I first started considering starting a business, I was leaning towards a Lawn Care Service. I was on another bulletin board for lawn care just like this one. Started with that username, and saw no need to change it.
You thought it had something to do with rolling a fat boy, didn't you? LOL!!!
BTW--I'm glad I made this choice!
Randy

 

[john orr]

FYI - My local distributor of the A&H soda will GIVE you the equipment with the purchase of 10 bags of soda @ $31/bag. (I see them for $200 on eBay.)

 

[mudbug]

Hydro Engineering AAU

This machine is an "abrasive application unit"- works for sand or soda. It has a hopper mounted to a two-wheeled cart with 25' of hose leading to a gun with the abrasive nozzle at the end of about 3' of lance. The guy here wants $500 for it- and it's a used one, but it seems to work fine. Not too high-tech. He gets $16 for a 50# bag of abrasive soda. I don't think it would be too hard to make one. My husband has made a couple of nice dry sandblast units from old propane tanks that seem to operate on the same principle. I can buy the nozzle
from Dultmeier for $80 and the rest of it is low-pressure iron pipe fittings and clear braided vinyl tubing. Add a gun and a lance and I'm in business.

What I want to know is, can they do everything he says they can? I know about the cleaning properties of soda, and I'm all for environmental friendliness...I just wasn't really wowed with the job it did on the hundred-year-old brick building this morning. Technique-that's what I need help on

 

[mudbug]

Whew! I thought maybe I was talking to a biker!

 

[Asbestos]

I have seen that unit the guy hawks on ebay for $200 I am not sure if building one would be worth the time and effort, it might end up costing $150. I like the free with purchase one, unless his $31 bags are 50# like your $16 ones are. I think also there are differnt grades of soda in terms of size. I have been toying with getting into this because we have a lot of boats, docks, and such that could use something like this. dumping lots of butyl into the Puget Sound is not the way to go

 

[MR ALAN]

Here is a good site to look around on and gather information. www.armex.com

 

[Dave Olson]

Over the years we've gathered various tools that work very well sometimes and then sometimes not so well! Kinda like a mechanic has many tools in his tool box, but may not use some for quite some time, but then a project comes up and you really need that tool. Baking Soda can be like that.

We have a Wadu unit. I will post some pictures of examples of some things that we've done using soda.

The first two pic's are before and after of rust removal using Baking Soda and the third picture is a test that we did using only water.

Dave Olson

 

[jandjsales]

we do media blasting also, and to be really effective on a building you need some serious equipment, our compressor is powered by a V8 caterpillar engine and the compressor unit alone is bigger than most small cars. currently to do off site work, we have to have it transported on a large roll back. prettty soon we will have a set up on a trailer, totaly self contained with a large hopper that will be about 12' tall when it is stood up by hydraulics. we do some soda blasting, it is not as effective as sand, but it has its place in delicate situations like cars, monuments, around glass etc.

its funny, most people wants stuff painted to look nice, we have had people lately wanting 50% of paint removed off brick to make it look old.

anybody need anything blasted in the southeast let me know.

jeff
jjjjjgrant@bellsouth.net

 

[navigator]

There is an outfit in town that uses the dry setup (air compressor) to shoot soda, and they have been used by the city a few times to remove graffiti from cinder block walls. Not pretty! When they are done, the block is permanently scarred, and the graffiti is still visible...

Maybe they don't know how to operate the equipment correctly, but they are consistantly bad...

<img src="http://huachucapressurewashing.com/images/sodablasted.jpg" />

Compare to what I do with a pressure washer and some Elephant Snot (on split-face block)...

<img src="http://huachucapressurewashing.com/images/mallwallbefores.jpg" /> <img src="http://huachucapressurewashing.com/images/mallwallafters.jpg" />

 

[mudbug]

More Soda blasting...

Wow! Thanks for all the feedback and pictures, guys (by the way, just how do you post pictures on this thing?) I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, but I'm still working on this building in town, and it isn't going as smoothly as it could, I think.

Brief recap- using a hopper-type soda-blast unit with our 6 gpm, 4000 psi hot water unit. I am mostly interested in doing hard water stain removal on brick, vinyl and painted steel siding, and maybe cleaning the oxidation and road grime off of Rvs and horse trailers with aluminum, composite and fiberglass sides.

So...I have been working on a 100 year old brick building in town. It's a historic building, an old opera house/theater. I am doing the job for free, in exchange for the chance to practice. It has stains running down the front from the mortar and wood trimwork around the windows and doorway. Major dirt and grime that the pressure washer alone did OK with. When I went back with the soda machine, it did a really nice job, all things considered. That was 2 days ago. Looked good, building owner's group was thrilled. Went by and looked at it today, and it's covered in white soda residue! Ran home, got my machine, and went down and rinsed the hell out of it-again. Like before, it looked pretty good. Went back down tonight to look at it after it got dry, and the soda residue is back again- not as much, but jeez-how much rinsing do I have to do? What am I doing wrong?

 

[navigator]

I had to ask about posting pics, too. If you use the thing at the bottom of where you write a reply (the button that says Manage Attachments), you can upload a picture to the board, but it will appear in your post as a link. If you want the picture to be there (like my post above), upload the picture to somewhere on the web you have access, and put in image tags, then the picture will be pulled off your host and put into the post when viewed.

Image tag: <img src="http://whatever.com/pics/picture.jpg">

 

[mudbug]

Thanks for the info, Leonard. I can post my pictures on Yahoo Photos, then send them here. Now if I can just figure out what the 'image tag' is...

 

[mudbug]

P.S. That picture info was helpful, but I still have a sods blasting mess on the walls of that old building...
Anybody with any experience at this- help, please!

 

[Asbestos]

I'm guessing the soad is in the little pockets in the brick, sort of soaked in, and I would try a bit of soap to help the water be wetter for the rinse. use a garden hose if you want, I think it is mostly just getting the flow there.

 

[xoddah]

soda blast

i did a lot of research on soda / sand blast here is a useful link
pacificsodablast.com "soda Joe" is most helpful and a real character

to do it right you are looking at a $8 k investment but the results are most impressive i watched a guy strip part of a car in nothing flat no damage even to the rubber window seals but what a mess 50 ft in every direction is soda
which does not disolve and disappear the way you would imagine..

i could not justify the expense and opted to sub contract when i bid to remove paint from concrete and steel i did not get the job but i know there are contractors who use soda for mold remediation with great success soda apparently kills the spores