Have you ever Macgyverd a sandblaster? Any tips?

I’m curious about what the hell you mean.

A sandblaster literally blasts sand. I will use it to remove some old car paint :)

And what’s Macgyvering it?

Making one, essentially… http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGyver

Aha – thanks.

Is it also possible to have wallabied the language rather than Gailing it?

Or janbb’d the Fluther?

I have never had the need as I have access to them at work, but I can say that you might want to familiarize yourself with the Venturi Effect, and how the choke on a shotgun works. Also note that certain materials do not work well as nozzles; if you can cut/reshape it with basic hand tools, it probably won’t last long.

@jerv Brilliant ! Especially about nozzle material. If you can make it yourself it probably won’t last long for sandblasting.

@dabbler If I make it at work though, it’s a different story. I can (and do) make things out of Inconel and titanium on one of these, but that isn’t a common household tool.

It should also tell you something that our shop has rarely made replacement parts for the sandblasters we have; even with the cheap labor and all, it’s generally easier to just buy the parts.

@jerv Of course ! I am presuming @wallabies‘s and my non-professional resources.
It could be endless fun to have a pro machine shop at your disposal.
Are you working with 3-d printing yet in your shop? &/or do you see it being useful in the near term?

@dabbler We don’t do rapid prototyping. We do sometimes make castings from SLAs (parts printed via Stereo LithogrAphy), but our company doesn’t design much anyways; we follow the blueprints/specs given to us.

As for being useful…. not for mass production. Now, if we had a setup like Diamond Age where we had feedstock piped into our homes the same way we do water, then it may be feasible to ease distribution, but as it stands, the biggest thing about 3D printing is it’s reduced setup costs. The ability to quickly build one-off/small parts without the expense of setting up a production line (or, in the case of my job, making a mold which is hard (or impossible) to alter and costs thousands of dollars) is handy, but there is a point where the cost-per-unit breakdown favors traditional methods.