Soda Blasting

[rpwillia]

Has anyone done this themselves? Last time I had my boat hauled the yard manager mentioned he was thinking about getting one of these units so boat owners could DIY if they wanted. Well he is gone now, but I was looking at this today (http://www.harborfreight.com/15-lb-portable-soda-blaster-60802.html) and for the price I am wondering if this would be a reasonable investment for next time I haul out and re-paint.

Since I know next to nothing about this, I am looking for ideas and information.

 

[Richard Bryer]

When I re-did the bottom of mine 4 years ago, the plan was to soda blast the VC17 and the tar based under coat. The guy I hired to do it had a portable unit he tried to use and found it was not strong enough. He would have had to rent a large, tow-able unit that was pretty expensive so we took it off by hand- warming it first with a heat gun then scraping.

 

[Ted]

That Harbor Freight unit is a toy. It would take you a month of Sundays to strip the bottom of a 30 foot boat. You will also need a compressor which can deliver 7 cfm's at 90 psi. If you don't already have a compressor plan on spending at lease another $500. I don't think you'll be happy with this unit to do large projects like boat bottoms.

 

[Meriachee]

The specs suggest that it would be great to take the paint off the macerator pump. Something else to consider on top of what Ted suggests, is that the 5-6 50lb bags of media, minimum for a 30 footer, turns into 7-8 50lb piles of stuff you need to dispose of.
I have a small unit, it's exceptionally messy, consumes a lot of air, and is good for some things.
Allocate your money to somebody pro while you watch them do the job.