So years ago I decided to refinish a bunch of guns and bought the HF blast cabinet and 50lbs of alox (no idea what grit).  Worked great, generated a metric sh*t ton of dust.  I had no idea what I was doing at the time.

I have since been schooled on dust collection systems, and am in the process of upgrading my HF blast cabinet and adding a vacuum and dust collector among other things.  I was thinking about a Dust Deputy, or just building my own.

Two main questions... Is there a better media for stripping old finishes off guns and preparing the surface for paint without changing the contours or dimensions of the metals?  I've used the alox to strip rust, all types of paints, bluing, etc.  Most guns end up "in the white" or nearly so.

If alox is still the best, will a Dust Deputy plus shop vac filter (hepa or otherwise) be sufficient for alox dust removal?  If another media is better than alox, same question re: dust removal.

Thanks.

I use coal slag

This thread is very pertinent to my current interests.

I use aluminum oxide, I think it is 120 grit.

How do to evac the dust from the cabinet?

There are a couple of ways to evacuate the dust.

On the left side of the cabinet is fitting that a shop vac can attach to. If you just hook it up to the vac, the exhaust from the vacuum is going to go all over the garage (ask me how I know).

The easiest thing to do is to attach a hose to the shop vac exhaust, and run it outside so that the dust goes there.
The alternative I went with was to find an automotive air filter that only has a single intake port. I made a fitting with PVC pipe that allows me to put the air filter inside the cabinet, attached to the exhaust port. Now when I turn on the shop vac, the dust is held by the air filter, and doesn't exhaust into the garage.

Works pretty well, but exhausting directly outdoors is still the best option.

G.

so something like a dust deputy between the cabinet and vac is not necessary?

With the filter I jury rigged, all you need is a shop vac.

I still wear a respirator mask when I use it,  as I am certain there are micron sized particles of media floating around in the air (even though I can't see or smell them).
I think the only way to be sure about undetectable particles like that is to exhaust the vacuum outside.

If you were some commercial service you can get extremely good scavenge systems that would make it completely safe, but they are well over $50K in cost.

I have a number of shop tools that create dust as I use them. Even the cheap ones have a scavenge port that you can connect your shop vac to and reduce the dust.
My goal is to get all of those tools on a large work table my father-in-law built, with the blast cabinet right next to it. I'll run a large upright shop underneath the table, exhausted through a port in the wall.
It will connect to a PVC pipe with t-fittings and valves so that every tool is connected, and by turning it on, I can finally be dust free.

One more project.