a
s I sit here today, 10 Years ago this month was my first tech article for this fine magazine that you have in your hands right now. To think about how many tech articles that I have done from then to now, blows my mind. Well over 100 of them, and I hope to do many more! Me being me, I can never leave well enough alone. I am always trying to work better or be better. That is where this article stems from. I have an old sandblaster from somewhere I cannot remember but it is a cheap one. I am always messing with it to try and make it perform better. This month I am going to show you how I made a metering valve for my sandblast cabinet. Not knowing if it is going to improve the cabinets performance or not but we are going to give it a shot. A metering valve replaces the siphon tube that is inside the cabinet. The metering valve is mounted on the outside of the cabinet on the trap door. Everybody says these things work great. But no one has yet to say how or where they improve the performance of the machine. So, a quick trip to the local hardware store to gather up supplies. This is what I came up with. It’s worth a try right…
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AApril pril - May ‘21 - CYCLE SOURCE MAGAZINE
Article And Photos By: Daniel Donley
www.pandemoniumcustomchoppers.com 1 ¼” Floor flange 1 ¼” 90 deg street elbow 1 ¼” x 4” long nipple 1 1/4x ¾” reducer ¾” x 5/8” brass barb 5/8” ID heater hose Approx. 6’ long ¼” NPT Motorcycle petcock from the junk drawer or some sort of valve All the parts listed cost about $35 excluding the motorcycle petcock from the junk drawer. Here you can see my trusty old cabinet. It is very similar to the affordable ones they seem to sell everywhere nowadays. I removed the siphon tube from the machine which is nothing more than removing a couple of bolts and a hose. After removing the trap door from the base of the machine, you will need to
find the center as we will be drilling a
1 ½” hole there. I use my drill press to drill the 1 ½” hole while holding it in my drill vise. I then line up the Floor Flange with that hole to mark and drill the additional 4 mounting holes and used some random ¼” fasteners that I had laying
