Patent ID: 7465215

Claim:
A sponge blasting apparatus which jets against a work a blasting medium of a sponge fragment formed of abrasives stuck within a porous elastic body out of a nozzle and grinds the work, comprising: a recovering unit which sucks and recovers the blasting medium jetted out of the nozzle; a sorting unit which sorts the blasting medium sucked and recovered by the recovering unit into a reusable blasting medium and an unreusable blasting medium; a blower which gives a sucking force to the recovering unit via the sorting unit; a dust collector which removes dust from an exhaust air discharged from the sorting unit with a sucking force of the blower; a picking-apart unit which picks apart the reusable blasting medium sorted by the sorting unit; a continuous feeder which, having at least two reservoir tanks into which the reusable blasting medium picked apart by the picking-apart unit is inputted, changes over the two tanks between each other to continuously feed the nozzle with the blasting medium deposited in the tanks; and a carrier which carries to the continuous feeder the reusable blasting medium sorted by the sorting unit; wherein the picking-apart unit includes: a rotary vane which picks apart by being rotated the reusable blasting medium having solidified into a lump state; a heater which heats the reusable blasting medium having solidified into a lump state in a hopper-shaped reservoir disposed upstream from the rotary vane; and a controller which drives the heater when the rotary torque of the rotary vane reaches or surpasses a certain level.