caveat emptor 3,617 (re; blast cabinet)

 I stumbled over a gotcha with the soon-to-be blast cabinet that I thought I had better share.  I am changing the cabinet over from using a siphon gun with a trigger valve to using a siphon gun with a foot pedal.

  Without thinking about it too much, I picked up a likely-looking foot pedal air valve from eBay, like the one in the photo.  Note the cheap plastic "guard" mounted to the pedal (with some rinky-dink plastic spacers not visible in the photo, since the two parts clearly were not made for each other).

 It turns out that it doesn't flow much air, and when it comes to abrasive blasting, air flow is as important or more so than operating pressure.

 This valve is probably intended for the rubber modulator valves used with pressure pot blasters, for which it would be fine, as those modulators do not require flow, only the presence or absence of pressure.

 Now it turns out that there are high-flow air valves in foot-pedal form, but there don't seem to be very many, and they are all based off the same valve, just with different sheet metal and paint surrounding it.  And annoyingly, there is only one that is reasonably affordable... and it's out of stock at the vendor right now. O_O

 There is, however, another way to accomplish the same thing: a fairly affordable ($20 - $30 for CN-sourced) solenoid valve having sufficient Cv (flow capability) and a relatively affordable (in my case, I think I already have one) electrical foot switch to operate it.

 More on this as things develop.  Right now, I've got a pile of accessories and upgrades for a sandblasting cabinet which hasn't arrived yet.

 EDIT, LATER: now the vendor is trying to avoid accepting a return.  Item was sold with terms including "Free 30 Day Return".  They asked me for a fookin' video explaining why it isn't suitable...

 This awful seller is 'brandz4all' and I am throwing these jerks under the bus now, because they are trying to avoid having a return and they want to stretch the correspondence out for 30 days after which their small amount of liability for the sale evaporates. GRRR... the thing is, that account is just one of many, many accounts held by one person, who is selling the stuff through an internet cafe's computer - in China - and the stock isn't anywhere near them, it might be in China somewhere, or it might be on a container bound for the USA, or it might be on the CONUS somewhere already, and some random cottage industry freight forwarder, in this case, allegedly someone in Franklin Square, New York.