Warnings to all you paint strainer users

I went out to service the Butler van for some commercial work tonight and when I went to change the filter bag (paint strainers) I discovered that the bottom had torn out and there was about 5 inches deep of sand and crud on the bottom....God knows how much of that ended up going through my blower.

I have never had this happen before and when I investigated the cause, it must have been the ciri-solv that I used to remove about 40 pieces of hardened gum a few days ago as the bag had that strong orange solvent smell still. It looks like it dissolved the liner and the 450 cfm blower did the rest.

I went through and cleaned out my tank and flushed the blower, but it has me worried. I did re-install the factory tank filter as well as double bagged my inline filter, even took that solvent off the truck so as not to be tempted to use it again. I rarely use such strong agents and now I remember why, there is just no place on my truck for the "hard" stuff any longer, it often ends up costing me in the end.

Just be careful and if you are the type that doesn't change your bag for several days, you better at least inspect the integrity of that liner before each job. You don't want sand in your blower.

Did you get much crud out of the blower when you flushed it?

as long as you were cleaning with water while it was ripped then it most likely just fell in the tank with the water, unless your tank got overfilled.

debris will usually just stay with the water and fall to the bottom once it reaches the waste tank so you should be good.

I need to flush my blower and do the oil. Where do you guys order your blower oil? I did one change with some stuff that was roots brand I believe

I did find some fine sand in the blower when I flushed it out, nothing real large, but still not a good thing.

As for the oil, it varies a lot for me as to where I purchase. For the Butler, I buy from them as they are the only ones that seem to have the right grease for my blower so I order it together.

For the TNT, I bought a case off ebay when I received the unit.

I do believe in using the factory match product for each blower even though it may not be necessary. On older blowers, you could just use non-detergent 40wt oil that is sold at tractor supply stores, but not the newer blowers.

I think flushing out sand from the blower is normal. I flushed some sand grit from my blower when I last did it