I have a few projects that need a sand/soda blaster. Remove paint from a concrete wall, varnish from some wood trim, a small rust spot on my car and paint from the side of a structure on our property with metal siding. I used sifted sand and soda and found that it worked well for removing the loose paint on the concrete but the paint that is well planted it would not even touch it, even if I held the sandblaster on one spot of an extended period of time. The building with sand and soda the same thing. The varnish with soda not even close, all it did was dull the finish. The rust with soda nothing would not even strip the paint. Now tests were done using 90 psi I plan on trying it again with a higher psi and will update. If you're looking for an inexpensive way to remove loose paint in prep for a painting job then this may work for you. To sift the sand I use a 5-gallon bucket and window screen over the top affixed with duct tape, then drilled a hole in the side of the bucket to place the siphon tube in. The use of soda makes clean up very easy with a garden hose if you can get what you've just worked on wet.

Update: All the tests were repeated with 125 psi and the results were the same.

Gets clogged unless you use a very fine particle of blasting medium. If you use anything nearly as coarse as regular sand, it clogs constantly. Also be prepared to hold the end of the hose that sucks up the medium as it is just rubber; if you place it into a bucket it will not continually feed.

I had low expectations because of the price but I figured for 16 bucks why not. The thing works surprisingly well even though it's runing off a little compressor with a 10 gallon air tank. So far i've only used it to cleanup a set of brake calipers and the blade spindles from my lawnmower, but if you're like me and you try to rebuild your car parts instead of just replacing the whole thing, this is perfect.

I've owned another sandblaster, but sold it several years back. It was taking up space, and I didn't use it enough. I still don't want to go into the sandblasting business, but I realized that occasionally it would be nice to have something to clean the rust/paint off of something, then prime and repaint. Well, this will actually do that, but the time involved varies based on the air compressor used to power it.

There are 3 types of sandblasters: pressure feed, gravity feed, and siphon feed. This is a siphon feed which uses the airflow through the gun to draw the sand up from the reservoir to be blasted onto the object. It's probably the least efficient way to sandblast, but if you're only using it for small jobs, it can get those jobs done.

I used it with a very expensive 5-HP, 4-cylinder, 2-stage Emglo compressor that puts out close to 20 cfm@100 psi. I also used it with my backup compressor, a Hitachi EC12 that does about 3.5 cfm@100 psi. It worked with both, but, as expected, the larger compressor worked faster. With the larger compressor, I didn't have to wait for adequate pressure. With the smaller, I needed to stop occasionally for 15-20 secs. for the pressure to build up.

One other factor is the sand. I used the cheapest I could find at the local hardware store. It was in an unsealed bag, so it was dry. Not recommended for "play" sand, not recommended for sand blasting. Basically, the worst sand you can buy in a bag. You can find other sand in sealed bags at the local hardware store. Higher quality, but wet. Any moisture in sandblasting will cause problems. You could buy the fancier stuff, put it in a bucket, and let it dry out for several days. You could also buy any of the various certified sandblasting compounds, but I wanted this review to help people that want to do a little cheap sandblasting, without spending a bunch on something they'll use maybe once a year.

One final point. You absolutely need to use some sort of eye protection, and air filter on your face. The ricochet sand grains go everywhere. I use a clear face shield, but you could get a hood. At a minimum, you need to use goggles of some kind to protect your eyes. It's also very important to have some sort of respiratory filter. There is a lot of dust from the sand, but also from all the stuff you're blasting off. Look out for your lungs!

Bottom line: It's not a fast as the more expensive blasters, but if you've got a good compressor it works on small jobs.

I don't have a fab shop, but needed an inexpensive blaster for a Cerakote gun project I was working on. This gun did the trick. Great price. I followed the advice of another review to cut the siphon tube short and this seemed to help pick up blasting media more easily. I was using garnet sand #100 and worked well.