Good Morning All,
I have a question actually many:)
I will be going to the show in Charlotte in a couple of weeks and have seen the "photo brasive" is any one using this system ?? I am thinking of adding this to my offerings. or is there another system you would recommend. I just want to do small items
Thanks,
Jack

What do you mean by using "Photobrasive system"? Are you refering to their Photo masks or their blasting system?

Dave

BEFORE you spend all that money, check out the PAB Blasting systems.

HALF the price, and they perform excellent. I feel they even have an edge over the "packages".

I have had a Model "D" now for 4+ years, and have never had a job I couldn't do with it, including many large, and on site jobs, which I couldn't even try without having a PORTABLE unit. (Including a job that was 900 pieces of 9' x 4' glass for a Mall in WI.)

For a cabinet, I bought a BlastBuddy cabinet from tiptools.com for around $100. Works Excellent!

On the attached link there is a picture of my blasting area. You can see the PAB in the far left, and the BlastBuddy cabinet.

Total cost around $950. AND I do feel the PAB has more adjustability!

Justin

www.bdtrophy.com/pab4.jpg

OK Justin,

You've peaked my interst again. PAB is only about 130 miles away from me & I have seen their unit at a table top show in Kansas City a couple of years ago. I have not dove into the sandblasting area yet, but it will probably be my next event. I think a setup like yours would work fine for me. How are you making the masks? Using your laser? Can you do any halftones or is that beyond laser masks ability? What else can you tell me (as in Do's & Don'ts)

John

Dave,
I was referring to both
Jack

Thanks Justin,
Nice Shop ...
My thing is I don't know all the supplies etc.. recycling the blast material
how to make a mask for blasting???? I will call the folks at pab and see if they would help
thanks,
jack

HE HE HE!

We use the photo resist process. Although it seems like a bear. It's not.

1. Measure graphic area, and design in Corel.

2. Print the graphic out on a special transparency treated for printing in an inkjet printer. (Of course you can use a laser printer, but I like the inkjet better as my blacks are ALWAYS black. Unlike a laser which depends on the developer, toner, paper moisture, coronas, etc.)
I get my transparencies from Photobrasive by the hundred sheet pack.

3. Cut off a piece of photoresist from the roll that is the size of the graphic your going to etch.

4. Put the transparency, on top of the resist, and put both in the UV Lectralight for 1 minute.

5. Put the resist on a plastic clipboard, and wash out untill the image is clear. (Harder to describe. In reality, simply spraying the resist with a special nozzel on the end of a hose for approx 1 minute. I do it in my deep sink)

6. Dry the resist with a hairdryier while still on the clipboard.

7. clean the glass you want to blast, and apply the resist. Squeege, peel off the carrier (thin plastic coating).

8. Blast.

9. Rinse the completed glass under warm water and peel the resist off.

Now, going back and rereading my process dosen't give the ease of it it's justice. As I have recently started doing "While you wait etching" in my shop.

I have the customer out of here in under 10 minutes! (While of course they are looking through the showroom!)

Today I did an order of 4 mugs for a wedding tommorow. And it took me just under 15 minutes. 4 large mugs @ $30 each. Mugs were $12, resist was $2, paper, transparency, blast media was approx $.90.

Ok, $15 cost, for $120 in. $105.00 profit in 15 min, or $405 profit an hour.

Need I say more?

I'm not sure where your located, but I would be happy to show you around the shop, and help you make your decision. It would cost you a steak dinner, but that's still a bunch cheaper than the training seminars.
The offer also stands for anyone else interested in any of the things we do, and you are looking into. That is of course, if your.....

"Not from around here", OR, "NOT thinking so WI might be a nice place to live!" lol

Justin

Cool, I'm in Kansas and don't get up to WI, probably the closest is if we see each other in Vegas sometime, but you never know.....

I have made some stencils for one of my competitors out of just regular sign vinyl which seemed to work for just letters and bacis artwork.

Like I said, that may be my next adventure.

Thanks a lot,

John,

I am in St. Joseph, MO. Not a bad drive from Wichita. I would also gladly extend you a tour of our equipment and etching process.

I have Photobrasive's Sandcarver II System from about 4 years ago. I us a 26-1KS nuArc Exposure Unit to develop the resist film. It is a bit pricey for a process that can be performed by a $295 Letrilite, but it is a great timesaver and the ideal method of accurately exposing your film to UV light.

If you are going to overkill anything in this process do it on your compressor and your dust collector. In my previous shop my sandblast cabinet was about five steps from my showroom. Sandblast dust was never much of a problem because I went with the 400 cfm dust collector unit.

Although I don't have one,The photobrasive blasting system seems great, but expensive. I played with it a long while when at the ARA show in Vegas earlier this year. Loved the self containment and the fact you can it while blasting, comfortable. We use the Rapid-mask HD from Photobrasive and love it. No washout, no gluing. We also use the Later lite system of exposure.

Another big plus is Robert G who works for Nonabrasive. Extremely helpful and they do stand behind their products.

Hope this helps,

Dave

Dave,

I was up your way a couple of weeks ago, I took my daughter back to Minnesota to college. Of course it was a straight non-stop trip up & back over the weekend so you probably would not have been at work any way, but I'll keep it in mind as well. Of course everyone on this board is welcome to stop in here if they get to Wichita. I enjoy seeing how other people do things. Not only does it give me ideas, but I think it also kicks me in the butt so I don't get too lazy and in a rut.

This thread is very interesting to us, because we've been considering adding sandblasting to our products. We have an Epilog laser. Does any one use laserable resists? Any do's or don'ts in using this? Also would love any feedback on pressure pot systems versus non. It appears that the best is pressure pot, but I'm getting that third-hand...would love to hear from the experts on this board.

Thanks

Mark

I was so excited when I got my laser, because I thought I could do all my resist with my laser, however, 90% of the glass we do is odd shaped, or round. And without the rotary attachment, I haven't done a single cut for etching on my laser.

Does anyone else use their laser for mugs, flutes, etc?

How well does it work?

Justin

I have to admit that I wonder if lasering the resist isn't slower than a standard washout approach. My uneducated guess is that you may achieve more detail with the laser, but that unless the design is entirely or mostly vector cutting, it might be faster to expose and wash it out. Does this sound right to you?

Mark

You just hit the reason I haven't dropped the $1500 for the rotary attachment! I'm afraid I'd be dissapointed, and out a trip to MN Ice fishing for a week.

Justin

Yeah, I don't think I'll make any assumptions about laserable resists at this point.

Now, to another question for everyone...if you wanted to create your own blasting setup cheap and were willing to put it together from pieces and parts, where and what would you get? For example...I already own a 6 gallon compressor, moisture filter, hose, etc. If I have my thinking right, you could buy a blasting cabinet and attach some sort of pressure pot to it to get started. Just looking around, Harbor Freight has some cheap stuff for sale. Do you think it would be realistic to assemble a decent setup?

Mark

Mark,

A pressure pot system is the only way to go. I would take it a step further and get a system that has the pressure pot built into the bottom of your blasting cabinet. There are a couple of major benefits to this.

1. Efficiency - When you cycle through the volume of blasting media in your system it is necessary to transfer it from your blasting cabinet back into the pressure pot. With well-engineered blasting cabinets all you do is depressurize the pot, taking all of about 15 seconds, then a spring-loaded door automatically opens and your sandbasting media funnels back into the pot from the bottom of your blasting cabinet. Systems that do not have the pot built into the cabinet will require you to empty the media in the bottom of the blasting cabinet into a container (creating some pretty good dust) and then transfer it into the seperate pressure pot (creating more dust).

2. Cleaner - See above!

I have never done an intense study on whether it was cheaper to use laser resist or photo resist material for etching, but it is my procedure to use laser resist for flat glass items and photo resist for round and odd-shaped items. Both processes produce excellent results.

I have used laser resist material and the rotary attachment in my Epilog with very good results, but I still find this type of job, from set-up to completion, is performed more easily with photo resist.

Justin,

I would agree that most rotary attachments for lasers will set idle for long periods of time. Mine did until I got hooked up with a manufacturer of goose, duck and turkey calls.

I still use my laser with laser resist material on flat items, as it helps tremendously in keeping the image lined up and centered correctly. With photo-resist it takes a good eye and more time to get things lined up and centered correctly.

Mark,

You would not be pleased with the results you get by vector-cutting laser resist material. This process actually creates a vector line in your glass that results in a deeper etch than the rest of your image. Some people use this process, but a customer that has an eye for detail will notice this and not be pleased.

David, thank you for your posts...good info and very helpful to us! One last question: knowing what you know now as an experienced blaster, how would you approach adding sand blasting to your operation? Any specific suppliers, equipment, etc.? How much money would be reasonable to expect to need to spend to set up a reasonable "getting started" environment?

Thanks again!

Mark