Dear Billy, Liz, and the gang at Rayzist,

I thought I would take a moment to give you my review of your latest offering from Rayzist, namely, the Super Grit Pit. As you may recall from our conversations, I have been blasting for about 3 years. During that time I have taken classes from master carver, Butch Young. The blasting cabinet I had been using before I met Butch was a commercial cabinet that I had purchased from an online vendor. It had the same typical generic features that all cabinets seem to have i.e. arm holes, rubber gloves, side door, external dust collector, etc. As a student of Butch's, one of the things that a person will notice (outside of her excitement for blasting) is her blasting cabinet. She designed and built the cabinet from plywood and lumber. Not the typical style cabinet that comes to mind when thinking of sandblasting. Her cabinet was designed using her years of blasting experience with the glass blaster in mind. It immediately attracted me when I saw it and then fell in love with when I used it.

It's no surprise then how excited I became recently when I found out that Butch was working with Rayzist to create a blasting cabinet that incorporated her design with the quality of Rayzist that I had heard so much about. So, when I found out that Butch was going to be at the Glass Bead Expo in Las Vegas demonstrating the cabinet, I had to attend to see it for myself. By the time the Expo was over I had purchased the very cabinet she was using at the show and within 2 weeks it was in my shop back in Kentucky. So, after a month of using it, I thought I would share my observations with you.

The first thing you notice when you see this cabinet, is the size. It's big. Every bit of the 84" in height. This bad boy is 950 lbs and has all the bells and whistles that Butch's wooden cabinet had and much more. Some people may consider the size to be too big for their need. I once thought the same thing about the closets in my first apartment. I quickly found ways to utilize the space just as you will too with the SGP. You immediately open new avenues of revenue such as large mirrors for example, instead of just smaller trophies. In this case, size does matter.

Speaking of size, the viewing window is 40x20. It makes it very easy to see what you are doing unlike the little porthole view that comes with other cabinets.

The next obvious trait is that there are no armholes with those silly rubber gloves. Instead, there is a slot that runs from side to side to allow all the access you could ever need. Your arms are free to move left and right inside the cabinet. The bristles and neoprene flaps that fit in the arm slot do extremely well in keeping grit from coming out of the cabinet while blasting and yet still allows easy movement from side to side. The large horizontal slot also allows you to put your glass inside to blast without having to open a door like so many other cabinets require and exposing hazardous grit outside the cabinet. But, if you do need to open the cabinet, you don't open a door on the side but instead the whole front of the cabinet swings open giving complete access to the blasting area inside if necessary.

The next thing to mention is the amount of light you have. My original cabinet had one light on the left side of the cabinet and made it difficult to see what I was doing. It cast shadows the farther to the right I had to blast. So, that meant staying to the left side of the cabinet most of the time. The Super Grit Pit doesn't have that problem since it has 5 lights. There ARE no shadows. Three lights are on top and one on each side. The SGP's lights on top are independent of the lights on the sides which gives you the flexibility if you need to turn either the top or side lights off.

The walls inside the cabinet are lined with neoprene. This keeps you from accidently chipping your glass if you happen to contact one of the cabinet walls or need to prop your glass against the back if you need distance when doing a light frost. The black neoprene also offers you the contrast necessary for successful light frosting and/or shading. Another added feature is the adjustable shelf. I can really appreciate the ability to set the shelf in one of four different heights which helps steady your materials so you don’t have to hold them up. Glass can be heavy to hold up for any length of time so the shelf comes in very handy.

The next item of interest is the built in 50lb pressure pot. Although some cabinets have this in their design it's a great part of the whole package. Having a built-in pressure pot allows the used grit to be filtered and fall effortlessly back into the pot when it is time to refill. This is much easier than refilling an external pot which takes longer and is much messier.

The foot pedal is one tough looking hombre. My original cabinet has this little metal pedal with small clear
tubing that runs to the pressure pot. It's barely heavy enough to sit flat on the shop floor because of all the twisted tubing running everywhere. On the other hand, the SGP foot pedal reminds me of a steel-toed boot like the ones I had to wear when I worked at an aluminum plant. There are no little wimpy tubes but instead real rubber hoses. You know how they say if there ever were a nuclear war the only things to survive would be cockroaches? I think it would be cockroaches and this foot pedal. It's built to last.

But probably for me, the most remarkable part of the cabinet is the evacuation system. My old cabinet came with an external dust collector that sounded like a shop vac on steroids. Its bark was much worse than its bite and if I blasted for more than a few minutes, I had to stop blasting and let the vacuum system catch up. Cleaning the bag in the collector was a mess as well. The "Vortex" technology in this new cabinet is simply amazing. I blasted several pieces of glass at 45 - 50 lbs of pressure and literally had trouble getting any "fog" in the cabinet not to mention how clean it stays outside the cabinet as well. It's not as loud as the standard cylinder type of dust collector and since the dust collector is "built-in" there are no clunky hoses to worry about.

This cabinet is 950lbs of pure blasting pleasure on wheels (literally). Although you may not find a need to move your SGP, but if you do, an individual just has to unlock the wheels and push. Honestly, the more I blast with it the more I enjoy it. I'll never go back to the old style of cabinet. The Super Grit Pit was designed and built with the glass blaster in mind and is sold by a company that has been an absolute dream to work with.

In closing, the Super Grit Pit is a fantastic option for any blaster at any skill level and will only intensify your passion to blast which in turn will make you a better blaster. So, if you will excuse me I'm headed back to the shop!

Sincerely,

Mike Mudd