Well the time has come to make my self known. I have been hiding in the shadows for a couple of months watching all your cars come together. Some of you are true masters of this craft. Now it's my turn to get my act together and get another pony out of retirement and back on the road. I have a 67 coupe that has so much paint on it, that it looks like the layers in a jawbreaker when you pick some of it off. I have the car stripped down to the suspension. I took it out to my uncles farm to do the dirty work the wife won't let me do in the garage.

I am going to rent a 10lbs sand blast pot and I have been doing some research on the best media to use. Sodium would be fine if there was only a single layer of paint, but I'll need something tougher to get through at least 2. I have then decided that perhaps glass bead or grit would be better. What would you recommend? I just want the paint off then I'll deal with any rust if I find it.

You're help would be great. Thanks guy's and gals. I'll post pics when I get home.



Jesse

 

I read recently in a magazine I picked up about Eastwoods different blasting media. So I googled and found this:

http://www.streetrodderweb.com/tech/...val/index.html

It is pretty close to what I read. Basically, Soda blast for paint removal. My neighbor just finished building a blasting machine along with his Son, and they've graciously offered to do my car also. (They rebuild Broncos, so they have experience with horses.)

The benefits are thus: Glass, wiring and rubber don't have to be removed. Soda will also remove greasy gunk off of your engine compartment, and if you wish the transmission, and Engine. Of course, you don't want it to get inside. Last but not least, the soda provides some protection from surface rust while you work on the car, and to remove, use water before painting.

 

I had the original primer and paint with 2 additional layers of paint on our 67 and decided to use sand as well. Works great however I did NOT dry blast. We have a nice gas powered pressure washer which I bought a Wet Sand attachment for. Basically your pressure washing the car and the attachment fits on the end and sucks the sand through which we simply dumped into a 5 gallon bucket and kept filled.

The nice thing about this is there is NO heat to cause warpage to the body panels because of the water. Also because its wet there is no harmful silica dust! Still, wear a mask at least, goggles (and/or full face mask) and ear plugs as it'll get all over (and in ) you.

To do our 67 inside and out took about 4 hours I think which includes a few breaks. Also took 27 80Lbs bags of sand. Note that you WILL spend hours getting all the sand out. We spent about 2 hours afterwards just blowing it out with a large compressor and then while on the rotisserie more and more sand worked its way out everytime you rolled it.

If you do media blast plug the rocker panels at every hole as its a pain in the *** to get out of there. Wet sand likes to clump and stick. I made a post about it and posted a few pics if I remember correctly.

Cost me 8.49 per bag of sand (230.00) and the wet sand attachment was about about 75.00 bucks. Pretty cheap really. I called around and no one does sand blasting around here due to health regulations. The few places who did soda blasting wanted 3 weeks and almost 2000.00! Chemical dipping simply isn't an option here because no one does it.

 

I sand blasted mine in my garage and if I had to do it again I would pay the 500 bucks to have it done. It was an interesting experience but as stated above the sand gets every where. i am still having sand fall out of my garage door opener and it appears in various places in the garage. The way I got most of the sand out of my car (notice I said most since there is still some in the car) is I have it on a rotisserie and I took it out onto the drive way with the car in an incline I spun it around so that all of the sand moved forward and then let it sit till it stops pouring out of every hole then spin again and repeat.

 

You can spend a few dollars for some chemical "Aircraft" stripper in the gallon container. Two or three gallons will do the whole car. Not to rule out the use of a blaster, but you can take over 90+ percent old paint off with this and a scraper and/or high pressure washer. A DA will make quick work of whats left on the level surfaces. I still use the blaster for the concave areas like the rain rails, grill, pinch welds, trunk seal area, etc, but it takes only minutes to clean these areas.

 

I used various methods to strip the car including sand blasting, the sand got to be too big a mess so striped with flap disks and aircraft stripper. depending where you live you might be able to rent a dry ice blaster. supposed to be the cats meaw of blasting. To bad i could not get one when i did mine, would loved to have given that a whorl.

 

I've also used aircraft remover and it's crazy to just watch the paint bubble and "melt" off, i definately recommend it to anyone needing a cheap and fairly easy way of doing it. The only thing about it is it is a HUGE deal that you have a suffciently ventilated area such as oh, i dont know, being outside and not in the garage whe you use it. Brain cancer is never a good thing. I read the warnings outloud to my girlfriend and she immediately asked, "So, that means I'll get the mustang right?"

 

Thanks for all the help everyone. How do you properly dispose of the aircraft stripper? Can you sweep up the remains of the paint and put it in a plastic bucket or will it destroy it?

 

the paint stripper will take the paint off and the remains will dry up and you can throw it in the trash. I tried stripper at first but it did not remove the primer. I also used a razor blade scraper to remove the majority of the paint before I blasted.