I'm just getting started with my first pool and intend to follow the BBB method. I searched around but haven't found anyone talking about purchasing baking soda used for soda blasters instead of arm & hammer boxes at the grocery store. I happen to have a soda blaster and I purchase 30lb bags for about $30 from harbor freight. As far as I know, this is straight up sodium bicarbonate, so it seems to me like it should be fine. I wouldn't bake a cake with it, but is there any reason not to use it in my pool?
Soda Blasting material as a cheap source of baking soda
- Thread starter brianf
- Start date
The MSDS doesn't say exactly what it is. It seems to be primarily baking soda, but what is "Proprietary Sodium Bicarbonate Based Mixture - Sodium Bicarbonate"? There may be some binder in there...
I guess you'll get to be the guinea pig.
I guess you'll get to be the guinea pig.
Around here you can buy 50 lb bags of sodium bicarbonate for $22. That is 44 cents/lb the price you found for blasting soda is $1/lb. Even Arm & Hammer baking soda is cheaper (around here) at about 50 cents/lb.
Whoops, I wrote 30lb bag, it's actually a 50lb bag for ~$35 (with their ever present coupons you can almost always save another 20%)
http://www.harborfreight.com/50-lbs-med ... 65929.html
Since it's the soda itself that breaks apart, releasing energy to explode the paint off the object, I think it's pure, no binder but I'll do some more research.
http://www.harborfreight.com/50-lbs-med ... 65929.html
Since it's the soda itself that breaks apart, releasing energy to explode the paint off the object, I think it's pure, no binder but I'll do some more research.
Costco and Walmart sell 13.5 lb bags of Arm &Hammer Baking Soda. The Walmart near me likes to hide it in the outdoor garden section. IIRC it comes out to about .45 an ounce.
Nice. For what it's worth, the ARMEX MSDS and other materials talk about flow and anti clumping agents that are included to keep the soda from clogging in the blaster. I'm not willing to swim in unknown chemicals if I can help it ;-)
Here in Arizona, Leslie's bought out Shasta earlier this year. They sell sodium bicarbonate for $80 per 50lb (more twice the old Shasta price) and call it "Alkalinity Up". Screw that. And apparently the people here know it, because there's plenty of "Alkalinity Up" in stock but almost no sodium bicarb to be had. The last resort is food grade Wal-Mart baking soda in 2lb boxes, $1.27 each (regular price). This is competitive with the old 50lb bag prices (and more convenient too!). So too bad if you want to bake a cake with the stuff, because I just bought out their entire stock to put in my pool.