Hello all, I've been a lurker for awhile, most times I am able to find what I'm looking for with a quick search. Today, search fails me. I'm prepping my chassis, which is constructed of all square and rectangle tubes. I have wet blasted it (what a mess) and then used after blast on it. I have been wire wheeling the stubborn spots for days. I guess the question is= exactly how far do I need to go with this? Because of ththe construction, there is no way to get into all of the cracks and crevices.. and the paint and frame sealer that remains is so stubborn, I can't help but think it would be fine under the epoxy primer and that I should just say enough is enough. I can tell I you that the original chassis paint was not show quality. I suspect that as it is now, my paint will look better. I just don't want to do it twice. I have a couple quarts of Eastwood's DTM epoxy.. if it makes any difference. Thanks in adavance!
What is the goal? To slap a coat of paint on and then cover it with a body or to have a show finish that's covered by a body? I've had chassis powder coated, painted then cut and buffed and painted with rustoleum and a brush. All methods work but not all are appropriate for the end goal Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I don't know if a show finish is necessary.. the factory finish was not impressive.. in fact, the primer was so thick that it covered the weld spatter that they led everywhere.
There's only 1 way to get a chassis perfect. That is to start it perfect and keep it perfect until it's painted and then be perfect in assembly. Anything short of that will leave you compromises to deal with. In your current position that's going to boot you right out of perfect before you get started. If the old stuff is stuck on there it will most likely stay stuck on there and hold your epoxy as long as it has some abrasion. You can get all the surfaces of the frame that show to look pretty damn flawless if you want. So Are polished stainless Jack stands and mirrors part of the plan? Where are the stubborn areas? Behind suspension, pedals, engine mounts, hidden by components and obscured otherwise? You could try spot blasting the stubborn areas if everything else feels wrong to you.
Wet blasting= water sand blasting. Did it this way because I am in a residential neighborhood and didn't want to P my neighbors off. It was awful. Worst two days of my life. (Jk, not a jk) No, no polished jack stands or mirrors. It's going to be a driver. Just trying to do the best I can to improve on things..
I was considering buying the small harbor freight spot blaster.. how bad of a mess could it make.. plus the design of it would allow me to 'get right in there'.. 25% off tomorrow.. hmm.
after all the wet blasting how did it come out? is it bare metal. i am a little confused, did it not work? i sand blast a frame, epoxy prime, filler prime and sand to make it smooth then paint.
It did work.. but time and materials ran short. The first time it was about six hours, I let the sand dry in the drive way, scooped it up and went for round two with assistance. Four hours that time.. it got most of it. I just don't want to do it again. Clean it up again.. after blast again, for a few tight areas. I just looked at the small blast gun on harbor freight.. now I owned this once before and returned it. However, that time was too large of a job for that tool. This job, might be just right. Watched a video, might do the trick and not make too big of a mess.. The only gripe is that I used play sand with water because the water killed the dust. I have two garbage cans full of blast media that I probably shouldn't use without water.. maybe some fresh filters on my respirator and strict orders for the kids to stay away...
sand is cheap just throw it away and buy a couple bags of black beauty. still need to use a good mask and keep the kids away.
Ohhhh It makes a mess. The bigger the area your cleaning the more the mess. The more sand you shoot the bigger the mess. It's best to do small areas (size of a dollar bill or so) outside in the grass. Or if it's bigger Area you can contain a lot of it with tarps. Id never do an entire frame- I'd send it out because it's too much of a mess. The little bag blasters do a good job at blasting without much mess but they are slow. Need to weigh out time/area vs time/mess.
I'm talking about tight crevices where two beams meet, inside corners that a wire wheel won't reach etc.. I wonder if it would do the trick. Grass won't work. It's on a rotisserie and leaving it on my blacktop too long makes impressions. I'll just sweep when done..
Lol.. I'm well over $800 in equipment alone. FML. I had a local guy who was going to do the job and then jerked me around for three months.. I finally gave up, bought a nasty pressure washer and the northern tool attachment, 32bags of sand and took a day off work. Never again. Lol
Dude get some stuff called end rust. Its a rust converter it converts what little rust thats in the crack in to a paintable primer.. if your gonna show it id put some sealer and primer/paint and run with it. If its a driver id run endrust with por 15 on top. Sent from my SM-G920P using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
You should have called your local dustless blasting guy. He could had you frame done in a couple hours .
I did just that! Guy quoted me $600, I said let's go! He said give me a few weeks and on the charade went. Finally bought my own setup. I did it all wrong though.. I should have chemical stripper first then did the blasting. The chassis is from a salvage 2001 Lamborghini.
A question about this wet blasting method............Doesn't the water get all up inside the door jambs and just lay in all the little crevices. I know it doesn't seem like much but that stuff takes awhile to dry. I would think the only way this method is practical is to have a climate controled room where you could force dry the body with very dry conditions.
Actually, yes. It is an issue. After I was done, I inverted the chassis a day later and had about a gallon of water on my garage floor. Kind of alarming..
yikes. i had a car brought to me that was blasted with water and baking soda. i cut the rockers out and they were full of what appeared to be cement. white sand packed tight that would have never washed out........i wouldn't do it.
The Jalopy Journal
