Cleaning parts is a blast in my blasting cabinet

This week I got back into the shop mostly on the weekend to clean up more parts so I will have more parts to paint.   If I'm going to mix up some paint and get the sprayer dirty, I might as well have lots of stuff to paint.  I scoured the parts boxes finding all kinds of parts that needed cleaning up so I can repaint them.


Before cleaning began I installed a new air filter and water trap.  In discussion with a knowledgable tool salesman, I found out I needed at least 25 feet of hose or air line between the compressor and the air filter.  Then hook up another air line after the compressor so that the compressed air can get back to ambient temperature and avoid condensing in a single air line.  Now I can operate the blasting box moisture free until the media is exhausted (about 15 minutes) when I have to shut it down, filter the media through a screen, and then put it back into the pressurized vessel for another round of cleaning.  Here's a photo of my new air filter and setup.

Here’s some parts I cleaned:
Windshield middle bracket (2 pieces) on the right

Air vents located at top forward at wingroot. One is clean and the other is as-received condition:

Small assorted brackets, fuel valve selector extension from the valve to the panel, wing root air inlet vents, and various window trim pieces that I found.

I also started to clean the large U-shaped bottom windshield channel piece.

The large curved windshield piece that attaches to the boot cowl is very exciting to be getting cleaned and the most challenging.  Challenging because I cannot fit it into the box and have some of it hanging out.  I still need to scrape some of the window gasket material out of the channel before continuing.  Most pieces I pre-clean them by scrape off the caulking material, and then sand them with aluminum oxide sanding sponges, and then it gets the best results (faster stripping) in the blasting box.