Found a way to clear a clogged riser tube in our sand mold system by using a short burst of compressed air at 90 psi instead of trying to rod it out.

Saved our crew almost an hour of downtime yesterday when a critical mold was backing up, and now I'm curious if anyone has a different pressure sweet spot for their own systems?

4 comments

4 Comments

anthony_wood362mo ago

Nice! We had a similar clog last month but used a water jet at like 60 psi. Worked but made a huge mess lol.

kevin_lane2mo ago

Wait, is an hour of downtime really that big of a deal? I mean, stuff clogs up all the time in these systems. It sounds like you just got lucky with the air pressure working fast. What happens if that burst just packs the sand in tighter and you make the problem worse? Then you're looking at way more than an hour to fix it.

the_ray2mo ago

Forget the hour, you could pack it solid like @anthony_wood36's water jet mess but worse.

kim_mason5519d ago

That compressed air trick worked for me once but only because the clog was mostly just loose dust and fines. The crew over at Henderson Brothers tried the same thing on a riser that had some hardened sand in it and ended up blowing a chunk through the side of the pipe. Cracked it clean open and they had to cut out a 3 foot section and weld in a new piece. Took them half a shift to fix that mess. I stick to rodding it out first to see what I'm dealing with before I start blasting air in there. Just one bad luck day and you're rebuilding instead of fixing.