Sandblast Pot Maintenance – A Complete Guide

As a contractor time is money and losing time on a job site because your blaster is not working can be a headache. Many times failure of your blaster can result in losing half a day in the field or requiring men to be pulled off a job to get the sandblaster back in working order. With the potential for so much headache that can come from a sandblast pot breaking down, it is important to reduce the chances of having a problem. In this article, we will provide the critical things to do for proper sandblast maintenance along with rough time frames to review various parts of your sandblast pot and common parts that can make sense to have on hand.

Sandblast Maintenance Parts to Have With You

The parts you need to have can vary slightly depending on how many sandblast pots you have and how fast you can get blast parts when you need them. As a general rule sandblast pots will wear where gaskets connect various components to the blast pot and where blast media routinely contacts the blast equipment.  Top sandblast pot manufacturers will protect wear areas with gaskets. These replacement gaskets should be something that is kept on hand. Additionally, it can be a good idea to keep an extra sandblast nozzle holder and additional blast hose coupling on hand. With these parts at your disposal, you will have critical parts on hand that if they become to worn could stop your blast production but with the replacement parts on hand you will be well prepared in case any issue occurs. An additional part to keep on hand is the abrasive trap screen, which is a screen designed to catch any blast media before it blows out of your blast pot exhaust. If this screen wears (which it will over time as media will contact it) you can end up wearing out your outlet valve which can result in an inability to pressurize the blast pot as the outlet valve is usually isolated from blast media and closes off the blast pot to build pressure but opens when the operator releases the blast handle. Finally, depending on your sandblast valve you may want to consider having the rebuild kit on hand for your blast pot. While most of the time a worn blast pot valve will just use extra media, it could result in slower production which can make having the valve rebuild kit on hand helpful. The photo below has red areas circled showing where common wear points happen on sandblast pots that can be important to inspect and keep proper parts on hand to reduce the potential of sandblast pot breakdown.

Parts to have on hand summary

• Quick Coupling
• Nozzle Holder
• Gaskets for coupling and nozzle holder
• Abrasive trap screen replacements
• Valve rebuild kit (if your valve has one)

Routine Inspection and Maintenance for Sandblast Pots

Once you ensure you have the right sandblast pot performing routine inspection and Maintenance on your sandblast pot will help prevent issues with breakdown. Common things to inspect at the end of every blast shift would include the abrasive trap screen, the blast hose coupling gasket, and blast nozzle holder gasket. If any of these gaskets or screens have become worn then you will want to replace them as they all serve to protect more expensive parts of your unit from wear and ensure the unit remains operational. At the end of a blast job, you want to ensure your blast hose has been emptied out of all blast media and that your blast pot is empty of blast media as well. This will prevent moisture in the media from causing the blast media to pack down inside your blast pot which can prevent you from being able to blast the next time you go to use the unit. Additionally every few blast jobs it can make sense to check your abrasive blast media valve to see if any of internal gaskets have worn completely away and if needed rebuild the valve accordingly.

Final Thoughts on Sandblast Pot Maintenance

Ultimately a little bit of maintenance goes a long way to reducing problems with your sandblast pot. By ensuring you have the proper replacement parts on hand you can reduce the potential of not being able to work. Additionally, by completing routine maintenance you can prevent the frequency of issues that occur with your blast pot and even potentially eliminate the issues from happening.