The going rate for a wheel locally...at shops they charge like $25 a rim, same amount of time to do a valve cover...granted...I'm no huge shop, so I can't compete on the level they do with a $4000+ sandblaster set up...mines still under $1700....but...after playing around with guns, and media...I got something set up to blast away the fine stuff and leave a glossy-ish finish. Right now I'm using a smaller tipped gun, and medium-fine glass beads...and the dust left with the glass is super fine, so if it does happen to get into an engine, then it will just have a polishing effect on items until it gets to the oil filter. The 4age engine block I did, failed misserably because I was useing playground sandbox sand....and a few grains found their way into some journals...and toasted that motor, but I also built that motor in a confined space, no room to do anything, and not enough tools to do the job right. So after a few years later, I got the garage, a real blaster, and a real air commpressor to actually do the job right. Frank is tryuing to get a powdercoating set-up for us, and I'll also have all the other tools onhand to do port and polishing, honeing, and measure everything and put engines back together. We just did Walters engine...and so far it's past 3000 miles, a drop oil oil from the oil pan, and the rest will be history after two more days.
I'm going to make a plastic cover for the blaster and hook up the shop vac with a 20 foot hose to the outside.