I'm kinda in the same boat as Danny, sandblast it yourself. If you shoot the sand towards the metal at about a 45 degree angle and keep the gun moving, even if you have to hit an area several times warping is not an issue. I just blew off the dust and wiped with a clean dry rag and shot etching primer. Been probably 20 years since the red 65 was painted.....
When I was ready for paint on my Brookville roadster which was sprayed @ their plant with red oxide primer that had to be removed as they(Brookville) stated it was sprayed on simply to keep rust away till body was ready for painting. Said it was not properly degreased or etched and had to go back to bare metal, then follow all steps back for paint. Considered plastic bead media, but the company that was doing it was way too vague about cost to blast and epoxy prime, plus I saw that one of their finished cars was back for work after a collision and had way too much thickness of primer surfacer showing to suit me, so I moved on. Local guy was willing to do soda blasting or sand blasting.. So I called PPG tech line and they were quite adamant, NO SODA BLASTING, as stated earlier adhesion problems. So I went with sand and he was very careful about warpage, and it was minimal. They sanded and cleaned and got all sand out, then sprayed epoxy primer, turned out OK.
That’s one of them no body filler cars? NO BODY FILLER Fine print disclaimer shot and sanded 29!gallons of high build primer
or duplicate a factory process and have it e-coated a friend of mine is building a Cuda that was baked, dipped, cleaned and e-coated like new cars are today. dipped e-coat, not a spray looked like a brand new shell, had a black e-coat primer inside and out if money is not an object, this is a great option no matter how a car is stripped, look at it as a paint/rust removal process only, not a paint prep process. the paint process starts after the parts are stripped this is why a company like PPG will not recommend an epoxy for soda blasting soda is paint removal, not paint prep
Was vending at a swap meet where this guy had a company that used water blasting and he was doing a body during the meet. It seemed to work well.
After BAKING SODA BLASTING what kind of prep work should be done before painting? A thorough pressure washing is necessary to remove the soda residue before ANY coatings or fillers are applied. This is very important; WATER is the only way to remove the baking soda. Do not try to remove it any other way, it will not work and you may experience a coating failure. We recommend a chemical called HoldTight 102, which when used properly will remove all Salts, Chlorides and Contaminates on the metal. Even though pressure washing with clean water works fine to remove the baking soda residue, we recommend the use of this chemical due to the added benefits. HoldTight 102 will give a window of 48 to 96 hours without flash rusting. Also when used properly it can increase the adhesion of your coatings by as much a 70%. HoldTight 102 changes the surface tension of the water allowing it to flush out areas that normal pressure washing MAY not get into. HoldTight works on most substrates; however on wood surfaces we recommend a citric acid or 1 part vinegar to 3 part water solution wash before applying any coatings. this is the prep process copied and pasted from these folks https://www.theblastmasters.com/FAQs.html here is the instructions for Hold Tight https://www.holdtight.com/assets/docs/HoldTight-PDS-7-29.pdf and https://www.holdtight.com/assets/docs/application-guide.pdf here is the video no matter what method you use, follow the instructions
One of the local to me powder coating shops also does a lot of sandblasting for people and shops in the area.. The manager told me a few years ago she has one guy she trusts to do the sheet metal and bodies. they get bodies delivered to be sand blasted on rotarissies all the time so they must be doing something right. The problems usually come up when you take it to a truck shop or heavy equipment outfit that sandblasts and the minimum wage guy who does the blasting has no clue how to do sheet metal right but he is fast.
The dipping process that Anthony Myrick shows is no doubt about the best thing you can do when restoring or removing paint and/or rust. However there aren't many places to get this done. Suspect EPA interference. That E Coat dip is an amazing process also. I was working as a toolmaker at the Atlanta Ford assembly plant when they started building the Fairmont, which was a unibody car which had a lot of areas where spray paint couldn't get to once it's all welded together. So they put in an E-coat system that amazed us all, the primer penetrated into seams where 2 layers overlapped and then spotwelded every inch or so so well that when split apart the only place not covered was the actual spotweld.
Had a truck done with the dustless blasting process . The guy came to my shop and I put plastic down and drove the truck onto the plastic. It was a long bed C-10 and he had the whole truck done in about three hours. It took it down to bare metal and removed all of the filler that was under the paint. He added a solution to the water that stopped flash rust. He charged $700 and saved me a ton of work . After he was done I drove the truck off the plastic and rolled it and had no mess in my yard. I would use that process again.
Anyone use the Princess Auto/Harbor Freight soda blasting unit? Is it worth considering one simply for paint removal?
I picked up my body today from being e coated. It was chemically stripped last year, I brought it back to my shop for fabrication and mock up then sent it back for e coat, it is now at the body shop. I have used this process in the past on a couple of cars and was very pleased. In my experience soda works well if it is prepped correctly before paint, stripping works well also but the car should be e coated after it is stripped so all the hidden surfaces are coated. Pre paint preparation is extremely important no matter how the car is stripped.
I acquired the Harbor Freight 15lb soda blaster and basically am happy with it. I did improve on the regulator to mixing valve hose and added a quick coupler to make it easier to fill with media. It came with about 4 different size ceramic nozzles. It does not have an on/off trigger, you need to operate a 90 degree lever on the mixing valve outlet. I believe all the HF soda blasters use the same elements except the size of the tank. I have spent many hours on two major items, removing zinc chromate paint from a PT-19 airplane rudder that is a very thin aluminum ribbed structure, and Cleaning the baked on oil residue left after a pressure cabinet cleaning operation on a Ranger aluminum engine case on the same project. It does a virtually perfect job Don’t try to operate it with inadequate volume out of your air compressor especially while continuos blasting. The provided water separater is marginal but I frequently drain it with the upper toe of my booted foot while blasting.
Only thing I have used soda on is carbs , aluminum parts . Then a dip in ultra sound tank , I don’t new was as clean .
The place that does all my stripping/e coating is Restoration Specialists in Franklin Wisconsin. ( near Milwaukee) This body, the fenders, and doors total cost was around $3,500, not inexpensive but all the paint, filler, rust is gone and the surfaces are now protected from future corrosion. (This car is large, I have had smaller cars done for less money) I like to do things right the first time so I have no issue spending the money on this car, besides I have owned this particular car for 51 years so it will be with me forever.
I cut some rocker panels off a car that had been soda blasted. it was packed solid with rock hard soda, from the blasting. it was close to concrete hard. not sure where else it may be hiding. I won't use it.
Well, I decided to use the DA with 80 grit disc.Lots of old body filler was removed . I replaced the complete floor and trunk floor with new store-bought panels and home-made from sheet metal. the quarter panels(lower) were bought and welded on also. so it took a lot of time to get the body ready for primer. I got it primered and block sanded once, looks pretty good. needs another shot of primer and more block sanding to be really straight. I may or may not do that, want to get the body back on the chassis and put everything back together so I can actually DRIVE it! thanks for all the help.
Got the body and frame back this morning and I'm quite pleased with the results. Don is a gearhead and knows his stuff. I complicated his work by leaving in the wire harness and door glass for him to work around. The wire harness had a maxi-fuse holder in line the the main wire to the starter/ battery cable and was too big to bring through the firewall grommet and the door glass being urethaned in place on the metal glass channel wouldn't come out through the window opening. The only body filler in the whole car was in the panel under the trunk lid that some previous owner made. Before, I was so proud of the rust-free belt line crease that is so problematic in these cars. Of course, now I am just another T coupe owner with rust there. Cost me $700; not too bad.
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