Lern me cheap sand blasting cabinets

I've got the $299 1990 Sears air compressor - what sand blaster do I need?

I've got some rims and rusty suspension parts from the new 240Z to clean up.  What's the cheap, easy button?  

Am I going to hate this in my garage? 

Probably.

I bought an inexpensive compressor like that and it worked fine for a minute or so, then I'd have to wait 5 min for the tank to refill. It will take you a week to clean up a rusty wheel, suspension bits might be ok.

My local powdercoating guy does really inexpensive sandblasting for me, do you have a guy like that available in your area?

You used the words CHEAP Sandblaster.

Cheap sandblasters will leak dusty air into and onto every surface in your shop.

Visibility is a big deal when sandblasting. Two items come into play 1- Dust extraction so you are not fighting a sandstorm. 2-Bright lights protected from the abrasive media bouncing around in the cabinet. Cheap cabinets do not cover these needs

Cheap cabinets have cheap guns and rudimentary media pickup tubes. This means that for every minute of blasting you are dealing with no sand blowing out the nozzle for 40 seconds.

All sandblasters require a lot of air. I have a 5hp 50 gal tank and would not want to use it for regular blasting use for fear of wearing it out.

That said, I do love the thing when it is needed to clean some convoluted chunk of rust.

Loosecannon has a video on how to uncheapen your cabinet. Well worth the search.

I'm considering using a local guy. 

good advice.  

Here is my cheap sand blaster set up.

Have to wear hearing protection when everything is at full tilt.

GP - That's a nice setup - I'm thinking I might not have enough room either. 

Since you run all over the place. If you have the time you could go here.

https://www.u-spray.com/rentals

I have the HF cabinet. I sealed the edges with foil tape, put a secondary light inside and run my shop vac for an extraction vent - I don't have a separator. Overall, it's worked quite well for my light use for years.

I have a video on the mods I did to my Princess Auto blast cabinet, that made it WAY awesome:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3-CKFdPdOg

If you live where it is humid at all, you'll want the best water separator you can get.  And some way of heating the inside of the cabinet 24/7 to prevent the media from turning into concrete.

When the nozzle clogs - and it will, frequently, no matter how often you sift the media - just hold one finger over the end and hit the pedal/pull the trigger.  The air will blow the obstruction out.  Then it will work well for another five or ten seconds...

I use media, not sand in mine. It's a HF bench top model. It does leak, and dust and media escapes enough to be annoying. Use sacrificial LED lights inside, because the blastic will ruin the lenses. My 20 gallon compressor works, but runs almost constantly. I stop every so often to let it cool. The siphoning works okay when it works. I buy my media from Tractor Supply.

I'm happy I have it. There are just some jobs nothing else will do as well. But it's not something I use with frequency.

 I have the $130 benchtop cabinet from the Hammer Store. The shop vac is the trick to keeping the dust under control. It keeps the dust in the cabinet and helps with visibility. I run a couple of LED puck lights inside as well. I've been using it for close to 10 years and while it would be nicer to have a bigger cabinet at times, this one does 98% of what I need. Being able to blast a bracket or part without needing to dig sand out of your ears is well worth the shop space it takes up.

Sandblasters are air hogs. A small compressor probably isn't going to run it very well. I have a Quincy 80-gallon that puts out about 19 cfm. While it doesn't run continuously, it does run a good bit. 

Not mine but a similar setup.