I have a paint removal situation. The fibreglass body on my ‘63 Avanti has the hardest paint ever! I definitely 2 part repaint. I’m in the process of stripping it to the bare surface. Regular strippers are only minimally effective. I have been experimenting with ‘aircraft Stripper’ which is far more efficient, but not recommended for fibreglass. It definitely works better, and I know I need to be careful with it, but if used on small sections, and removed quickly, will it work without damaging the fibreglass? My second question is what is the best way to neutralize it??
Water neutralizes it, spray bottle and some paper towels. As for using it on fiberglass, I'm not sure because I've never tried. Tape off a section and try it, see how or if it affects the gel coat. Then you'll know
Be very careful using anything liquid with fiberglass. The fibres can suck the material in and hold it which can cause major problems down the road as the solvents from paint get sucked in and reactive the stripper causing paint failure. You should only use mechanical means of paint removal. Sent from my SM-G950W using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
^^^^ This. Chemical paint stripper and fiberglass is a very bad combination. You won't know you have a problem until paint starts lifting, and it may not show up right away either.
I've done a few plastic fantastic and I would never recommend using chemical strippers. I have used razor blades, DAs, soda blasting, etc. My favorite method is paying someone else to do it but soda blasting is my favorite if I must. I bought an eastwood dual tank blaster, a bunch of arm and hammer soda and went after it. It made a mess but it doesn't harm the environment if it runs off in the drain.
I have owned a 70 Avanti for 32 years now . I painted it twice. never used any stripper. Sand it down well and seal it, then paint. Always spot test first!
35 years ago I had a '69 Corvette that had been stripped with "Zip-Strip" aircraft stripper, then repainted (poorly). The stripper had caused several spots of the new paint to blister, evidently not cleaned or neutralized well. I was a dumb kid, and I sandblasted the entire car with white silica sand. I was reasonably careful, but managed to sandblast a path across the removable rear window, and I had a couple "fish-eyes" in one T-top. It did get all the paint and lacquer primer off, and I didn't have any blistering from the paint stripper though. I took it right down to the 'glass. As I recall, "Feather-Fill" was pretty new, I laid a couple double wet coats on it, blocked it out and painted it with catalyzed acrylic enamel.
Don't use stripper, Early Avanti did not use gelcoat. You have to be careful with primers as they will lift the lacquer paint. I just finishing painting one.
Years ago ... 1969 Camaro f'glass lift-off front end for sale cheap. Went to look at it and the surface of it was a MESS. Guy had used chemical stripper and it didn't end well. I walked away. I do like to gamble but you are taking a huge risk ... odds are not in your favour. I thought soda blasting was the thing for fiberglass.
I have stripped several older vettes with chemical stripper with no issues. However, sounds like an Avanti with no gel coat could cause a disaster trying to do that. I know I have tried some aftermarket glass parts with varied results. However, the newer chemical strippers also aren’t much good anymore as best I can tell so may also not hurt glass.
I saw a Corvette stripped with aircraft stripper it was absolutely fuzzy after. I repaired a motorcycle fuel tank that had been stripped, again fuzzy, by useing a product called W500 by POLY-LUX they are still in LA
I picked up a gallon of that aircraft stripper and read the back of the can. It said "Not for use on aircraft". You think I'm kidding. In other words, not for aluminum. Lippy
Level it and paint it. Why strip it at all, and yeah, may not have gel coat. Even with gel it's not worth the risk. It'll rip your heart out 6 months later on a hot day when the chemicals purge from below the surface. I don't care what you see or how well you clean. DON'T do it. 80 on an airfile (if you're good with em), 7" DA ( we call em bondo busters), keep a fan behind you and level it all off. Most 2K primers with fast solvents and low temp activators will not hurt old substrates. Just don't get greedy. Or any number of new polyester primers are a good start too. Nothing like the masochistic Featherfill used to be. Good luck...
When I was a body man back in the early 70's I painted Corvettes . You never use paint strippers on fiberglass it gets into the voids between the fiber and will bleed out under the new finish in time and cause blisters to form .
Bad idea. It will soak in and show up later. There were "Gelcoat safe" strippers back in the 80s that guys would use on Corvettes, but that used to lift the bonding strips used to assemble the body or soak in and bubble later.
Been a lot of years ago, but when i did my 60 corvette after days of sanding to do one fender and a door someone wiped big gob of grease on the quater panel. Fired up the steam cleaner to get it off. Took six layers of paint down to the gel coat in about 20 minutes. Of course, that was uncatalyzed paint, but it never hurts to try asmall area. Its just water
Used some stuff called Captain Lee's Spra-Strip about 15 years ago on my '62 Corvette, primed with DP-90, no issues to this day. I do not know if it is still around. I have stripped three cars and a few motorcycles...never a again.
In the 70's we used paint stripper out of the gallon cans. Yes on corvettes. But not on raw glass without gel coat. Your ok as long as the gel coat is good. Then sand and we used DP-40, that was before DP-90. It had a 30 min incubation time before you shot it. Made sure to wash it down to nuetralize the stripper. Block it good. Couple coats of DP then wait 30 minutes. While it was still a bit tacky, prime it and then the car sat for a month. Outside in the sun every day we could. Block it hard, prime again, sand and shoot. You just had to stay on it and not let any stripper stay on it wet. It was a lot of work to strip a vette. Still is I guess. Then top coated it with whatever. You just couldn't get in a hurry. Lippy (showing his age) lol
I learned volumes of plastic info in scale flying model airplanes. Paint remover was never in the mixture. Beware, and remember: "This Aircraft Paint Remover is NOT to be used on aircraft..." Yeah, Gospel
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