hi this is Jeff with mr. hard water a
very important element when are using
our blast kiss whether it's blast get
one Blasket two or the hopper series to
clean pool tile concrete stone fountains
wood metal or whatever is to choose the
right type of media now the very
important thing to consider when you're
choosing the right type of media is to
find a media that has granule sizes that
are going to be able to fit through the
blast nozzle now here's a typical blast
gun we have the trigger handle here we
have a side handle that helps you to
stabilize the the gun and then most
importantly is we have our brass venturi
head so in the media is flowing the most
important thing is for you to be able to
draw that media from a bucket or a
hopper through the hose here and into
the blast media head to where it's going
to be injected out of the tip and what
are you going to be able to clean so
it's very important to find the right
granule size now for most of the people
that we work with they're doing pool
tile cleaning for pool tile cleaning we
highly recommend using the universal
minerals max Tripp now Universal
minerals has just had a new company name
change or it's been bought out by a
company called abrasive products and
equipment this company is uh located out
of Houston and they have a lot of
distribution for this max Tripp product
and one of the big distributors that
they have is superior pools so if you're
a pull professional and you have a
contracts license with these guys then
go to them and have them look it up in
their system to try to find the
Universal minerals max Tripp now there's
two types of media types that we use
within the max Tripp system and we like
to use the PT 2 and the PF 2 here's a
bag of the max Tripp media right here
it's 50 pounds and the bags on the end
are marked whether it's PT 2 or PF 2 so
if I trick this bag upside down you'll
see that here it's going to be marked PT
2 and we have other bags that are marked
PF 2 the difference is media isn't very
very important
when you're working with very very bad
stains these are the calcium states that
have been on the glazed tiles with a
natural stone for a long periods of time
and they've been baked on to the stone
with the sunlight and the heat it's very
important to choose the P t2 now P t2 is
short for pebble tech - and it's a very
abrasive media and it's very ideal for
those types of jobs if you run across
other jobs that were the the calcium
stains are light to medium then you can
step it down a notch to a less abrasive
media and try using the P F to the P F
stands for pool formula - both are very
good and you'll find that on some of the
jobs you're probably going to be using a
little bit of both so for example a lot
of pools are in the Sun half of the
pools in the Sun all the time and then
half of the pools in the shade you're
going to find that when the calcium
stains are adhering to the surface when
it's in the shade it's a lot easier to
get off in those cases all use the P f2
and it comes off really quick and it's
great however when this when you're on
the sunny side when you use the p f2 it
just comes off too slow you end up using
too much media and you spend too much
time so in those cases what you're going
to want to do is you're going to want to
switch over to the PT 2 to really knock
off those really bad calcium stains
so before I get into the technical
details on the max trip I just wanted to
point out that we do have a bag of solar
salt here the reason I use the solar
salt is not so much for the cleaning and
and other applications you can do with
it but it's mostly for tuning up your
system and testing everything out
because this bag of media this this salt
here you can get it from Home Depot for
about 6 bucks
for about 40 pounds and it's an ideal
media to start running through your
system so you can start getting a handle
on how the media is flowing and and what
the potential is for these systems one
thing to consider though is that
different stores are going to have
different grades of this salt so this
brand right here the splash and ready
this is an ideal size granule size to be
able to fit through our blast head now
if you choose another brand such as the
Morton brand those granule sizes are
just slightly bigger and these have a
harder time flowing through the blast
head because they steam they tend to get
stuck so if you're going to use salt for
testing and experimentation try to find
the salt granules that are about on the
medium size that are going to be able to
fit through your blast head and then
finally these systems can be used to run
walnut shells and sand and other
materials we often use the sand like
materials like this and although it's a
light material this is a highly
effective paint stripper you can do a
lot of a lot of pain stripping with a
with a pressure washer and this system
by switching over to sand so basically
almost any type of media will run
through the system as long as the
granule sizes are right you can use
walnut shells you can use baking soda
baking soda is manufactured by rmx and
natrium you can purchase those from
Harbor Freight the problem with those
medias is that their usual bit they're
not as abrasive and they're not very
effective at pool tile cleaning because
they're not abrasive enough to clean so
you can use the baking sodas you can use
sand and then finally you can use the
Mac strip
now a couple details about this Mac
strip is the technical term for this
this material here is Kyser right it's a
really great material and one of the
most important features of this material
is that it's fractal meaning that upon
impact this media has a tendency just to
break apart when it hits the surface now
that's a big difference compared to the
glass beads that are basically like
small pellets when those small pellets
hit the surface they basically recoil
right back at you and that recoiling is
the cause for all the cracking and a
pinning and the chipping of the stone so
a big feature for this mac strip is the
fact that it's fractal and breaks apart
upon impact that helps us to clean
really well but at the same time we're
not causing all the damages to the
surface another very important feature
of the
of the max trip Kaiser I'd is that it's
pH neutral it's really nice because if
you're working around the grassy areas
and the media it gets sprayed onto the
grass you're not going to damage the
vegetation because it has a neutral pH
now that's not the case when you're
using the baking the baking soda is by
our mix and natrium they do not have a
pH of seven they're slightly different
from that so if you are to use the rmx
are naturing bake baking soda and that
gets sprayed onto the grass if you don't
wash it thoroughly the grass is going to
get burn and it's going to kill the
vegetation so it's a very important
thing to consider is the pH when you're
using the blast media one of the
important things also to realize about
the max drip pies right is that it is
water soluble
however it's I call it partially water
soluble it takes time to completely
dissolve in the water however it is
technically water soluble so like other
types of media like the glass beads you
are definitely going to have to vacuum
this material out of the pools or the
fountains so that it doesn't get into
the plumbing systems and the filters etc
because when this material dries it has
a tendency to to dry like it to cake up
a bit and you really don't want this
stuff in your systems because it just
complicates a lot of the the problems
associated with your filtration system
so when you're pumping this material out
of the pool after you've cleaned it
basically what you can do is just pump
it right out to drain you'd basically
don't need to run this stuff through
your filters instead just throw your
valve and just pump it out to drain and
it will be fine because over time its
water soluble in is pH neutral and it
avoids you from having to clean out your
filters so basically we recommend the
universal minerals max trip which is
available from superior pools the two
grades that we like for the pool tile
cleaning is the pt.2 which is the
stronger of the two
and then there's pf2 so I hope that this
explanation of the
for blast media's that are supported
through our blast kits and hopper
systems helps you to find the right
media for the right job