Dustless blasting and sheet metal

[greasemonkey]

Hi,
I've done some searches and haven't found any definitive answers from the experts on whether or not dustless blasting will damage sheetmetal. There is a dustless blasting company close to me that advertises stripping cars and trucks, and has quite a few pics in their portfolio to prove it. I have a few projects that would be very convenient to drop off to get completely stripped to metal for rust repair and body work.
Thanks for any input. John

[mongocanfly]

I would think it would depend alot on the condition of the metal before they started...with enough pressure ,anything can be damaged....I checked into it on my truck...none were close to me and the quote was high...I went with a local blaster that used coal slag...they did a great job,but messed up my doors..
The videos look fairly impressive on the dustless...

[greasemonkey]

Thanks for the reply. I think I may get the tub for the Blazer blasted since it has a lot of dents and scrapes already from its past military life already. I'm a little more concerned about stuff like the '42, where parts are almost non existent. I could see the long panels warping easily.

[theastronaut]

I'm not a fan of dustless blasting, any warping is caused by the abrasives stretching the metal, not heat, so adding water into the mix doesn't solve anything. If anything it could make it easier to warp the panel, since the abrasive now has more weight from being wet and hits the panel harder, causing it to stretch more. It's also a major pain to clean wet abrasive out of all of the inner braces, cab corners, etc. Wet abrasive packs down tight and I've heard of people having a hard time getting it out again, especially if allowed to dry.

[Jason Banks]

I had my front suspension/frame and firewall 'dustless' blasted. The guy that did mine had no concerns about warping and had done plenty of full cars. However....never again.

theastronaut is correct that it is a major pain to clean the wet abrasive out of everything. I guarantee you there is still abrasive chunks hanging on the bottom of my cab 2 years after getting the frame and firewall blasted. They used crushed glass and it seems to stick together like concrete when it's wet. The guy made an attempt at hosing the abrasive off while it was still wet...but that stuff gets everywhere...like dust except it turns semi solid.

I'm about to have a cab and frame blasted, but I'm going to take them somewhere and have them done. When I had the dustless blasting done. I didn't want to try to take a mostly assembled/non running truck somewhere to get done. I had the dustless done in a parking lot on top of a tarp and it still took forever to clean up.

[Macdaddy1]

The shop that I use only blasts with fine sand and never with water. They can very the pressure and correctly blast panels without warping. They did my entire 65 c10 without any ill warping effects.

[greasemonkey]

Thanks for the replies. I think I'll try to find someone locally who has experience blasting sheet metal. For some reason, it's hard to find in my area. Most of them want to add bedliner or powder coat with the blasting services.