I have a
Trinco cabinet. There are two types of blast cabinets, siphon and pressure. If you want a efficient system you should get a pressure cabinet. Here is a paragraph from the Trinco site explaining pressure cabinets
"DIRECT PRESSURE MODELS
A direct pressure cabinet utilizes an A.S.M.E. coded pressure pot to hold abrasive media. When the foot pedal control is depressed air pressure is released into the pressure pot, pressurizing the pot and then forcing the media from the pot through the blasting hose to the nozzle.
Most pressure blast cleaning is done at 40-60 PSI. Due to these lower pressures, abrasive media breakdown is greatly reduced even though a high volume of media is being directed at the part to be cleaned. Most of the media is recovered through the recycling process.
Direct pressure blast cleaning is ideal for the very tough jobs, for applications where large surfaces must be cleaned quickly, for production blast cleaning or when the job requires the use of heavy mesh sizes of silicon carbide, aluminum oxide, garnet, etc. Other popular medias that are used in Trinco pressure cabinets are glass beads, Trin-mixes, Rad-mix, and plastic blast cleaning media. "
I have a pressure type and it is so much faster that I don't see how a resto shop could be without one compared to a siphon. The hours saved if you do alot of blasting would pay for itself in no time. Big cost difference though. I see siphon cabinets for 800.00 while a good sized pressure cabinet will be about 5000.00. If you have been using a siphon cabinet you will be amazed at how much better a pressure cabinet is. I can get you pics of mine if you want.