“Baking Soda” Blasting

[dt]

This appears to be a good tip.

In restoring old bikes, cleaning the carbs is a big hassle. I use solvents and have all kinds of tiny dremel tips to get around the exterior and then it's never really that good. I wouldn’t think to use my hand-held, gravity-fed blaster, because the media would undoubtedly damage the carb in so many ways. But this article suggests using regular household baking soda for the media. Interesting idea. Baking soda would be less abrasive and would easily clean out of the interior.

http://www.aircooledtech.com/tools-on-the-cheap/soda_blaster/

I haven’t tried this yet, but will. The new XR500R has dual 28mm Kehins, so I’m definitely going to give it a try and will let you know how it goes.

[squid]

What a clever idea! Though I'm inclined to hold off until the weather cools and the humdity level drops off. Otherwise I envision a gloppy mess. Keep us posted on how it works for you.

[Scoobyroo]

You may read that laundry detergent can be used as a cheaper alternative to baking or blasting soda (harbor freight has this, 25lbs 25$) its a crock of shit It'll take paint off of wood nicely but I found with any metal part it just builds up onto it in a super hard caked on mess that pretty much requires you soak the part in water for a night to get it off.

[dt]

I gave the baking soda blasting a shot today on the recessed tips on my Harley pipes. I first tried a number of hand tools, wire brushes and a few different tips on the Dremel; nothing would get in the grooves around the inset.

I have a hand-held, gravity blaster that I got at Harbor Freight for about $30 (the bigger of the two they sell). I’ve used it mostly to strip frames and clean/polish engines. It’s great for getting in the fins on the jugs and heads. I typically use 80 grit glass bead.

The baking soda easily stripped the paint in the core and cleaned the surface rust out of the grooves of the perimeter pretty well. It didn't cake up. I picked at the rust in a few stubborn places with a flat-pointy file and reapplied the soda. In the absence of the blaster, I’m not sure how I would have been able to get in there sufficiently.







So, of course, I had to try it on a number of other things. I blasted the rusty handle bars of my son’s bicycle; nothing. Definitely, this is only good for light surface rust. I went after a chrome car hub cap; nothing. It didn’t polish it or anything. Lastly, I hit a small round-barrel Keihin carb made of cast aluminum … woo hoo, cleaned that thing up, just like the pictures in the first post. I used only half a box.

Lastly, the mess factor is probably half of that of the glass bead. It’s still a big mess, but not too bad; do it outside. Same big cloud as glass and oxide, so you still need the respirator inside or out.

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Edit: I forgot to mention that I used a simple two-stroke exhaust plug to keep the soda out of the pipe.