I prefer to do it myself.

I was trying to figure the best method for cleaning my engine up as the APO (asshole previous owner) painted it that shit black. Not even high heat, flaking off like nobody's business; however, some of it's sticking pretty well. I've shot some aerosol can stripper on it and it took care of a fair amount of it. The problem is on my cylinder heads there are some horribly tight nooks and crannies. The consensus from sohc4.net is to bead blast the bugger. I don't have a blast cabinet, a gun or glass.

So here was my solution... Blast cabinets run upwards of $150 easy, the guns can be pricey as can glass. For these one time use tools the best source to me is Harbor Freight. I got a gun for $10 and glass for about $25. With shipping it came out to a bit over $40. This still doesn't solve my blast cabinet problem, even the cheapest from HF was about $130. I don't want to be shooting glass beads around without it contained!

Time to solve it.

Rubbermaid tote: $7
Long heavy duty/cloth lined rubber gloves: $7
Length of PVC: $4.50
Polycarbonate sheet: $15
Plus some things I already had lying around: N/A on the price, I'm not counting it.

Total: $33.50
Time: 2 hours (including faffing around time)