I am in bodywork mode and was doing some forum research on metal/welding in the fabricatorforum and the moderator was saying that using a sandblaster causes small perforations in the metal and if you use etch primer, you could possibly have rust issues down the road - anyone heard about this? I stripped my 66 from the front cowl forward and am getting ready to do the engine compartment, fenderwells and had removed most of the paint with a stripping wheel - there are some spots where you can't get the wheel in and I was going to sandblast these areas - will I be ok if I use the PPG etch primer? Do I really need to use media, pricey?

 

Well I hope it doesn't cause rust because my dad and I just stripped everything from the cowl forward with a sandblaster. We used aluminum oxide (70 grit) and it seems to have came out nice. Then we put on a coat or two of self etching primer. After that probably like 5 coats of primer (sanded in between) then the black. It came out real good, so I hope it doesn't rust, because we were REMOVING rust by doing all this.

 

If sandblasting causes rust, my car should be eaten up with rust because the entire car was sandblasted 10 years ago. Somebody is feeding you a line of bull.

 

Surely it's how you treat it after the blasting unless they were using beach sand!!!!

 

The only time you should have issues of rust is if you don't clean and prep the metals after you blast. There's other media used in blasting, not just sand. Plastic, glass, and other medias are used when stripping to metal. I personally like using plastic as it's not as abrasive as sand or glass media.

You should be fine, just be sure to clean and prep the metals after blasting.

 

You should be fine after blasting---choose which grit media you want---then simply prep the metal afterwards, make sure the etch primer you get is good and you cover the surface completely 2 or so coats---media blasting is one of the best things you can do--it strips it down completely and gets in really tight spots---you should be fine!

 

Thanks guys, the moderator on Fabricator.com was saying that the sand was going to make cuts in the metal and I guess the etching part meant that it wouldn't seal on the metal correctly - I guess that's one plus for media

 

Sand blasting is really and old term since it was found that sand blasting will cause silicosis. Nobody uses actual sand any more unless they are crazy. It is gererally refered to as media blasting. I still call it sand blasting but I'm old.

 

its old? what? i did it to day just got to wear a respirator yes i used sand

 

Use it if you want to. I won't