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Old 08-27-2015, 12:07 PM
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BMCM BMCM is offline
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Originally Posted by Hill_Country View Post
has anyone tried blasting a slide or frame without a detail strip? Especially when not bead blasting the entire weapon, is it possible to remove the blasting media with a pressure washing? What about masking parts such as sights?

Seems like a detailed teardown and reassembly is considerably more work than the actual blasting and I wonder if there are any shortcuts.
Nope and I wouldn't even try. You see, that fine blasting media migrates into everything. And I mean everthing! Even parts you've carefully masked off with heavy vinyl tape and are not directly blasted, you'll find grit under the masking when you peel it off. Imagine trying to clean grit out of areas like the firing pin channel, under the extractor or in the recesses under the rear sight without disassembling

Another consideration is fully degreasing the parts before you blast. If using a blast cabinet where you're recycling your media you don't want any grease or oil contamination in there. It'll cause clumping in the media and any parts that are destined for coating ie. Cerakoat, will also have surface oil contamination. No good for getting paint to stick.

The only way to do a proper & thorough job is detail strip the parts. A frame nearly falls apart, only the sear spring requires a bit of careful work. Slides are a bit more difficult. Getting the sights off can be troublesome and the extractor pin can be disagreeable at times

Even when stripped, getting all the grit out of all the nooks & crannies takes some work. I'll go over the parts with compressed air first then wash with detergent, rinse then back to compressed air. And after all that, occasionally I find a blotchy spot or a small area I missed entirely and have to start all over again

Back in the day I often told my lads "Do it right the first time or not at all" Any job done halfassed will eventually have to be redone. So in short...Blast some assembled pistol stuff and you'll eventually wind up detail stripping anyway to get all the grit outa there. Sorry, no there's shortcuts

Cheers
Bill
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Last edited by BMCM; 08-27-2015 at 06:08 PM.
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