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Big Kev, you mentioned buying a cheap media blaster at Harbor Freight for about $100. I saw what you did with it in your pics. Nice!

I think having one of these would be good. So, do you just fill it with sand, stick the part in, and turn it on?

Well first, you never you sand. Silca is dangerous stuff to breath in. HF also sells 80grit glass bead. That is what I use, it takes off the rust, and old paint, but doesn't eat up the metal.

Pretty much a fill and go. You just need to have an air compressor that can keep up, and a good water trap. Nothing clogs a media blaster faster than moisture that will cause the media to clump.

Also have a shop van hooked up to the exhaust port is helpful as well as it keeps the dust down and improves visibility inside the cabinet.

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Besides the things Kev mentioned, it is a manual process with you, the operator, using a "gun" to direct the media being blasted by means of a pair of built-in leather gloves through the body of the cabinet. Great invention.

Kev, did you get the benchtop model or the standalone cabinet? I'm wondering if a Jr. wheel will fit in one of the units, preferably the benchtop version.

I got the bench top version. I doubt you could fit a wheel in there and still have room to manipulate the blasting gun around it. You would need a deep/full size cabinet for that.

I pretty much only use my cabinet for smaller parts. Wheels and larger items I take to the local media blasting outfit in batches and have them do it. Pretty cheap and fast turn around. I had 5 wheels, and 3 splash pans media blaster for like $50. I also had them do both front fenders pretty cheaply.

If you don't have a blasting company nearby, have the space and don't mind the mess, you can get one of the syphon fed sand blasters to do bigger jobs that won't fit in the blast cabinet. I have had success with mine. I know using sand is dangerous, but with the proper respiratory protection, you are OK. For wheels, I would wire brush as much as possible and use the portable sand blaster for the hard to reach areas. Hardest part is finding dry sand to use. Not to replace a media cabinet. It's night and day.

Portable sand blaster

If you go "al fresco" with your blasting, you can do it on a piece of large canvas, and then use that to quickly recycle the media.