I’m wondering what to use to blow all the dust and particles off my blank before glassing. I can’t afford an actual air compressor/hose, which is what I’ve seen people use to do this. I was thinking of using those compressed air cans that people use to clean their keyboards/computers but I’m not sure if the chemicals in them will harm the blank. Does anyone have suggestions for alternatives, or any inexpensive solution that can produce a strong concentrated stream of air?
I dunno maybe I’m missing something but I generally just brush it off with a shop bench brush, never had any issues
I’ve been using my electric leaf blower ( with a weight on top of blank )
Instead of blowing you can vacuum works nice too.
Okay, a few things-
First, it’s not compressed air for many of them, those are a relative (plain flourocarbon gas under pressure) of Freon and Halon. Pretty inert, unless you’re an ozone layer. Others contain ( I looked it up) something called a ‘bitterant’ which surprised me- apparently some out there steal them from the office, huff the things and that bitterant discourages them.
Now, flourocarbons are just that, not air and thus not oxygen. Huffing them probably causes oxygen deprivaton, something like a high and then brain damage, which probably leads to repeating the experience . This explains a lot of my dealings with office types.
But the so-called canned air is expensive. Unless you lifted a case of the things at the office just ahead of the brain damaged guy huffing them.And do you want to be letting off a bunch of those in a small closed shop? Between the ‘bitterant’ and lack of oxygen, this kinda counts as chemical warfare.
In the same way, if you somehow got hold of a tank of compressed nitrogen or carbon dioxide, bad idea. Oxygen is our friend, people have managed to kill themselves off with inert gases or Halon or CO2 fire supression systems in confined spaces. Ship fires, for instance. If it will put out a fire, it’ll put you out too.
Anyhow - for five bucks you can get a bench brush, for twenty five Home Depot will sell you a surprisingly useful mini-shop-vac gizmo that clips onto a standard five gallon bucket which will either vaccum or blow air, for forty or so on sale Harbor Freight will sell you a small, noisy and annoying compressor that can also inflate your tires or your air mattress or a lot of party balloons or your cat or run a real small sprayer or a nail gun for about two nails. For a hundred to two hundred you can get a new compressor that’s useful for a lot more or a used one that’s quite useful indeed…
hope that’s of use. Don’t inflate the cat.
doc…
I borrow my wife’s portable vacuum cleaner (with hose attachment). I pick a suitable soft brush attachment (and clean brush with isopropyl alcohol).
Removes the foam dust from a shaped blank just fine…
You can just use a duster, like Huck suggested. But if you can’t afford an air compressor, you might afford an air tank and cheap air hose and blow gun. Home Depot and Harbor Freight sell this setup. The tank is filled with air at a service station.
And it keeps the wife happy as she thinks your hauling off to help around the house. HaHaHa!
Pick up finish shaped blank. Give it a smack…not hard enough to dent foam. Flip it over and repeat. Glass as normal. LOL! I usually don’t break out the compressor unless I am going to paint the finished blank.