Can I sandblast a yoyo to de anodize it? or is sand too harsh and I would need something less intense? lol
Cheers,
From the little I know about sandblasting, Ive actually done industrial blasting which would cut yoyos in half, but even regular ‘sand’ is too rough I would imagine. I think it would pit the aluminum too harshly.
But…
If you have a small pot machine, you can regulate pressure, perhaps some fine medium, with more cut than powder/soda, maybe walnut shells ??? If you are careful not to damage the bearing seat and response area you may be able to do it, I cant see why not.
But then again, it may be a whole lot easier to do it the chemical way ?
Give the topic a bit of time for people to see it, you should get some better answers, Im kinda just guessing here.
You can use it but you need to be very gentle. Just enough pressure and watch your distance from the piece.
If you have access to a blast unit then go with glass bead, the finer the better.
You can check out my blast thread for pics if you haven’t already.
Sand blasting is too rough on metal Yoyos, unless you mask off the catch zone. I have seen it done on plastics however.
You can use a very fine grit media, such as glass beads w/o harming the yoyo. Be aware however that if you are doing this to re-anodize it you really need to chemically treat it as anodizing actually alters the surface chemistry and a new anodizing will not take. Someone who anodizes can do this as part of the process.
thank you all for your answers! Very helpful!
Cheers,