Anyone tried the NEW sandblasters @ Harbor Freight that have built in Vacuum??

[sixpack_sid]

Has anyone had any experience with the NEW Sandblasters @ Harbor Freight? They now have a built in vacuum and filter system to filter out the rust from the abrasive material. Do they actually work? Or is it a waste of money? They want almost $300 for it!

[Silver R/T]

do you have a pic? We have a blaster with vacuum at work. Originally bought for 900 (according to my boss) so $300 is not expensive at all compared to units that go over 1K. Vacuum is there to filter out dust. We dump whole trash can of silica dust every 1/2 year or so. It's very nice setup.

[sixpack_sid]

No, I don't have any pics, it's not in the catalog yet. I saw it in the store and was wondering if it's any good. I'm going to go back and take another look at it.
Thanks!

[Chatt69chgr]

have not seen the vacuum/dust system you describe yet.  I bought their cabinet sand blaster a couple of years ago.  finally got it going.  the gun is a direct copy of the one that tptools sells.  I bought a gun from tptools along with carbide tips from them and a foot operated air device.  i got a portable vacuum cleaner from harbor freight and it works pretty good.  mounted it under the sandblast cabinet.  still get enough dust that i need to put a couple of 150 watt outdoor spot lights on each end of the cabinet to give me more light.  I hung a piece of plastic on the back of the cabinet to protect the back wall.  got it at home depot.  stair runner.  put grommets in it and hung from cup hooks.  easy to replace when necessary.  got my blasting media from harbor freight.  if you were going to be doing a lot of blasting, I would seriously consider the tptools blast cabinet.  three times as expensive but probably worth it.  i operate on a budget.  tptools also sells the dust collector separately.  but it costs something like $290 I think.  look at tptools.com.

[bull]

I used to have a $100 Harbor Freight table top blaster cabinet and I just plumbed in some PVC pipes to attach it to my shop vac. HB quality is not the best, especially their power tools, so I imagine their version of a vaccuum isn't much good. You can get a decent Shop Vac at Home Depot or Lowe's for $30-$40 so why not get quality for less? I also used a magnetic drop light inside the top of the cabinet and it worked just fine.

The cabinet itself was about average. They all leak whether you spend $50 or $900 so it's just a matter of how many features you want. Leakage is why I got rid of mine but in retrospect I kind of wish I would have kept it and just found a better place to use it, like in my storage shed. If you have lots of space and can dedicate a small room to just a blaster cabinet you'll be much better off. Otherwise the media gets all over everything.