walnut blasting

I have a friend that owns an abrasives supply company. I showed him the rear steels I have. There is some decay that needs to be repaired but the welder that's helping me wants them blasted down to bare metal. Gordon, the abrasives guy tells me the best medium to use would be walnut shells. They grind walnut shells and run them through standard blasting equipment. He quoted me $25 a bag, said I should be able to do the job with 2 bags. Anyone heard of this?

yes we have used it to
blast intake valve on the
early Toyota and yes he would
think it the best because he
sell it . baking soda would work
also glass bead seem faster
  B:-)  Dnoym 

I have blasted lots of tractors and plain old brown sand will clean them up as good as walnut shells. Shouldn't take much more material and you can buy it at lumber yards for around $5/bag.

I don't know how effective walnut shells are on heavy rust, but I have found black beauty works very well on really rusty parts. Like the others say, unless you plan on trying to polish something, I don't think walnut shells are what you want.

I have even used the tiny plastic beads from a water softener...works real well on small parts like carb's and where ever you don't want sand to get into.

I get ground glass from a recycler locally. It works real good on rust. May cut a bit agressivly on a fine surface but a rusty wheel? Great cheap stuff!

I always thought walnut shells were for softer metals where sand is too rough. Shells are abrasive but softer than the metal.

The best blasting media for what you are wanting to blast would be white silica sand. We have put hundreds of tons of it through our blaster since back in the 70's when we began blasting with our 600 lb Clemson, but thanks to the "nanny state" because it may cause "silicosis" it can no longer be purchased.  Last we bought was nearly $10 per 100 lb bag.  The brown sand will work but it is much "softer" and not quite as agressive as the harder white was.  It is cheap media but takes longer to blast with it because it is less agressive and it is also much more dirty and dusty.  We use the black majic product now and sometimes mix it with the brown sand depending on what we are blasting.  I would recommend the black majic for the rear rims you are working on.  The black majic is ground and screened coal sl*g product.