Once you have removed the side panels from a Cab unit, does anybody have any experience with abrasive blasting the frame, shutter area, and edge of the deck? I'm thinking that it might be possible if we go to great lengths to ensure that we don't get any media in the engines, electrics, generators, and traction motors. It would save a zillion man hours of needle scaling. Anybody ever done it?Also, any suggestions on cleaning the shutters??Thanks

We used soda to blast around the trucks. I've also heard walnut shells are also a good alternative to sand around sensitive areas.

Dry ice pellets simply evaporate after blasting. Nothing in them can damage the locomotive, but you must deal with the removed material. It is also possible to remove the flaky rust and chemically convert the remaining solid rust surface into an inert material - you needen't go cllear down to clean metal. For shutters, perhaps a chemical striper is the way to go, followed by lots of neutralizing and plenty of rust buster / WD40. Do you have a source for plymetal?dave

You have to be very careful about sand blasting because the media can peen the surface of the metal and this imparts stresses that can appear as unusual distortion in thin metal components like doors. The sand blasted side usually becomes "longer" and the metal panel bows away from it. It is very easy to distort sheetmetal components this way.

Dear delocable:I used ground up walnut shells to blast the prime mover and carbody interior of an Ingersoll-Rand box cab that I restored for the Henry Ford Museum back in the 1980s. It wasn't as aggressive as sand or black beauty, but it did a good job, vacuumed up easily and was a lot easier to carry around the bags of gritFew people have ever seen the inside of I-R No. 90 since it was restored, never having been open to the public or accessable from the viewing platform (now removed I think). Indeed, many people don't even notice the locomotive as it is painted black and sort of gets lost at the end of the dimly lit hall.J.David

When we worked on WP F7 918-D we chose to keep the sand blaster away from the locomotive just to be safe. No point risking sand in the bearings and stuff. As for the shutters, ours were rusted in position and I chose to dissasemble the entire system and rebuild them, including the power cylinders. The results were worth the extra effort. Much of this was detailed on the website, here's a link to the work update section...http://www.trainweb.org/wp918d/work_update.htm-Dan

We have used this mehod of media blasting before and it is very good. There are a few companies that have machines that pellitize CO2 and then use it as an abrasive media. The good thing about this is that once it does its job the media goes back to a gas state leaving behind only the rust and crud that it blasted loose. This method will remove paint, rust, boiler scale and what ever other nasty stuff that you can find. Here is a company that does this sort of thing but do a Google search and read for yourself.http://www.co2-blasting.us/Applications.htm

A cautionary tale: Many years ago, my associates and myself stripped a non-EMD streamlined carbody locomotive right down to the frame. While this direction was taken for a number of reasons, one of the benefits was the ability to easily degrease, sandblast, prime and finish paint the interior and exterior of the chassis. As I recall, the work was done with a mix of volunteer and paid labor-so that many of the heavy components could be cleaned, painted and re-installed in a timely fashion.The material that was used is trade-named "Black Beauty", which I believe is processed steel mill slag-a metallic product. The moral of the story is this: Even though the locomotive has sat in the same spot for YEARS (and hasn't run, either), one of the minor mysteries of life is the fact that the thing appears to "secrete" Black Beauty from unknown cracks and crevices. So...If your group is set on blasting from the outside in, what I would do is erect a curtain wall of plywood inside the carbody (sealing the edges accordingly), in order to protect the apparatus from infiltration of grit.As for the choice of media, one should realize that aggressive grit blasting on the type of sections that make up the side trusses of an F or E unit is probably going to create the need for structural repairs. I can't vouch for CO2 pellets, but I do recall that the cost (in the NE) was a bit more than was budgeted for. As for ground-up walnut shells, they are certainly less agressive than steel grit-but will that do the job ? Don't discount the ability of the needle gun, wire wheels and other hand-held tools to do the job. On a later repaint job (an Alco RS-3), we had developed a technique of sandblasting (inside a boxcar) items that could easily be removed from the loco and then setting up a production line for dustoff and priming. The balance of the carbody (the hood ends, cab, long hood hood structure, etc) was completed with the use of a needle guns, wire wheels and so-on. Many years later, the locomotive still looks pretty darn good.Dave

Gang,

In spite of all the great advice to the otherwise (truly, thank you very much!) we Sponge Blasted the interior cab, nose, and under the floor areas of our E8 locomotive. The brake equipment was already out but we removed the windshields and other glass, floor boards, dead stuff that wasn't ever needed again, the head light, class light, and number board innards. We sealed up the control stand with all the metal covers and packed old blue jeans in the openings, and covered sensitive areas with red duct tape. We covered or plugged all open pipes. We covered the traction motors with big sheets of black plastic, and covered the roots blower intakes with big garbage bags. We put plywood over all the door and window openings in the cab to contain the sponges. We sealed up the generators and aux generators with plastic. The #1 electrical cabinet is to be rewired and all the equipment is to be rebuilt so we just closed the doors and covered the breaker panels. Finally, we threw a big tarp over the front of the locomotive to contain any sponges that might want to get away.

The blasting went very, very well. There was almost no dust. In fact, we performed the blasting on a track where equipment was located on adjacent tracks on either side of us. Colaterial damage was nonexistant! The metal was profiled to 2 - 3 mils, and the rust sandwiches were gone!

For those that are considering some sort of blasting of cars or locomotives, the Sponge Jet method is amazing. This post is not a commercial. I'm just a RR person at Tn Valley RR Museum that found something that really worked for us and our application. The Sponge Jet folks have a web site and I would suggest anyone that is considering abrasive blasting to look at it.

One of the really great things about this process is that once the sponges hit something, nearly all of their energy is gone. So you are not left with a micrometiorite zooming off at warp six to tear up something else 100 feet away.

Note: Before blasting any piece of equipnent, you must evaluate [u]every[/u] item that will be blasted to determine what level of contamination or damage that you will accept - if any. In our case, we had a nearly stripped cab to deal with and what was left was going to be completely rewired. We didn't have much that could be damaged. As with any blasting process, the sponges will get into every nook and cranny in the immediate areas that you are blasting. One point to remember is that the operator periodically goes in and vacuums up all the sponges to recycle them. So this really keeps the mess down. Also you are not left with two tons of mess to dispose of when they are finished.

Today, we have a "new" cab that was primed with Dupont Corlar epoxy primer and finished with a satin Dupont Imron. Cool!

FYI,

Robert Frye

Thank you for your report. Earlier in this thread discussed CO2 blasting. I'm curious as to why you decided to go with sponge blasting instead of CO2 or any other media/method. (I know nothing about blasting, which is why I'm asking the question.) Was cost the determining factor, sponges cheaper than CO2? Or was it felt that sponges would get better results than CO2 or another blasting method?

Curious to hear your comments....

You might want to consider water blasting, if that hasnt been mentioned already. It effectively removes paint and rust, leaving only water and paint chips behind. However, this method will dissolve any rubber or wood, I can't recall if it does any harm to glass however. One of the bigger suppliers for water blasting rigs is; www.nlbcorp.com

Sincerely;
Jared Bissen
Wasatch Railroad Contractors
www.wasatch-rr-contractors.com

Of all the methods that we looked at, the total costs really were not that different. The major issues were collaterial damage, short term & long term mess, and whether the process would actually remove the layers of paint and the heavy/scaley/flaky rust that we had. I had understood from several folks that have used co2 blasting that this method didn't remove heavy rust. We, thankfully, didn't have lots of heavy rust, but we did have a few places that were heavily rusted. So co2 didn't seem like an option.

We also needed 2-3 mils profile to meet the DuPont paint spec. The sponges can get this with no trouble. Through changing the grade of sponges, the sponge blaster can simply remove dirt and grease with no damage to rubber or plastic parts or they can get as agressive as you want. For our job, only one grade of sponge was used, but other jobs may require different sponges depening on what the customer wants. The sponges have a great encapsulation capability and are very good at lead remediation.

Also, the blasting was performed by a contractor. So all we had to do was get the locomotive ready and provide support as necessary. This seemed like a great option compared to us spending two lifetimes in the cab sanding, scraping, and needle scaling....and still ending up with an inferior result.

Two final thoughts: The areas that we were blasting were fairly tight areas to work in. Those that have done sand blasting know that in a tight area the operator gets blasted almost as much as the steel surface does. This is not an issue with the sponges since the sponges loose almost all their energe at the first impact. Also when you are sand blasting in a tight space, you have to blast a few minutes and stop a few minutes to let the dust clear or you have to blast in "white out" conditions. This is not a problem with the sponges either.

By the way, if anybody has experience with co2 blasting and heavy rust removal I'd like to hear it.

Robert

Don't worry J. David, someone must be interested on the interior of that boxcab as the door is sometimes ajar even though it is not accessible to the public. I've seen the interior and it is in great shape.

I think we have discussed Rusteco before. The gel product can be painted on and left for a few hours then rinsed off or lightly scrubbed off. The oxide in the rust is "pulled" of the metal and combined with elements in the the gel to form new biodegradable compounds. It works very well for rust, but won't touch paint. I suggest that C02 blasting plus a Rusteco treatment on heavily rusted surfaces might also suffice.

www.rusteco.com

I am surprised that we have not heard from Bennett Levin of Juniata Terminal. I have heard him talk about his experience with CO2 and he seemed to endorse it.

It involves having an outside contractor come it. But as commented about above, all that it leaves behind is the material blasted away from the metal -- no water, no goo, no sand, no walnut shells.