Tool Review: King Brand Magic Eraser (Sandblasting cabinet)

So I've been asked to give more info about the setup I am using. A chance to ramble on about whatever I want? YES, PLEASE! 

I'm using Harbor Freight 70 grit aluminum oxide media that I got on sale a while back:

It seems like it is holding up pretty well, I think partly because I am no where near blasting efficiently due to my lack of correct air volume and pressure.

Here's a shot of the thing sitting conveniently on my stack of Rota C8s:

 The "King" brand sticker seems to be stuck on but from everything I've seen, it is pretty much the same as every other small blast cabinet you'll find on eBay, HF, and even Amazon.

It comes with a transformer to power the 12V (seriously, why????) florescent light in the box.

 I didn't mess with that yesterday, but, honestly, it's not very bright and is pretty darn useless.

Sandblasters like DRY AIR. In preparation to use the cabinet, I bought this HF air line dryer, with some fittings and a "jumper hose:"

 It works VERY well and only leaks a very little bit, which I might be able to fix with some more teflon tape (supplied with the cabinet, actually). Or I can just not bother too much with it.

I had forgotten that in the box of stuff that came in the cabinet that there was a set of nozzles. The pre-installed nozzle was a #5. I swapped in the smallest nozzle in the set, a #4, and that helped A LOT with the air consumption!

It helped enough that I could nearly continuously blast with this little thing:

This became even more useless:

One of these days I'll figure out how to bypass the thermal safety on that and just let it run continuously. If it dies, so be it.

That being said, after tweaking the fittings and air lines, I was able to make a lot more progress in less time this evening!

Don't you just love that finish?

I know I do! 

Here's a closeup of the remaining rubbery residue that was left under the ball joint:

I didn't have enough oomph to take that crap off, so I scraped it off with my pocket knife and was left with shiny, nearly brand new paint underneath:

A few minutes later, SHAZAM!

 All done! I LOVE IT!

Blurry pic is blurry:

 Phones should not be cameras. Yech.

Anyway, that's the inside. It's large enough for nearly anything suspension wise, but I don't think a Honda RTA (rear trailing arm) will fit, even diagonally. We'll find out eventually.

The only really, really annoying thing I've found about the whole thing is this:

 Can you see through that? No? Well, I can't, either. It's mostly from static cling. The sandblasting creates enough static electricity to zap me occasionally, and it also sticks the particles to the clear sheet (I have no idea if it is acrylic or whatever) that you are supposed to see through. I'll be trying to figure out how to prevent that.

And yes, it leaks:

So what? That can be fixed, if you want to bother spending the time. I don't at the moment and I never may. 

Summary of the pros and cons:

Pros:

-Price

-It comes mostly assembled (except for the filter and air supply hoses) out of the box

-Surprisingly effective with less than ideal air supply

-Well sized (Smaller would be annoying, larger would be too big for nearly any small work area)

-)(#*)(*$# CLEAN SUSPENSION PARTS! 

Cons:

-Static cling blocks your view

-It leaks

Would I recommend it? YES. 

Would I spend the time to fix the leaks before using it? MAYBE. If you are going to use it all the time, then yes, it would be a good idea. I am mostly going to use this a lot for a little while and then leave it alone in between various projects, so I am not sure if the time would be worth it when I could put that time into getting my CRX's suspension cleaned, painted and installed.