Wire wheel + sheet metal

Is it a good idea to clean the rust off sheet metal with a wire wheel?

 

It's hard to get rust off thin sheet steel with wire wheel ,but undercoating with fly off with wire wheel. I get all the loose stuff off with wire wheel. After that I use everything from 80 grit sandpaper to roloc disk to get the rust off. Even use Ppg bare metal prep to get light rust off. A lot of hard work.

 

Thanks. I'm gonna start laying the lines out for my chop and was putting together a shopping list if stuff to buy. I was more worried that the speed and wire would be to harsh for the thin metal.

 

I'd use a DA on my very first project vehicle I used a wire wheel to strip rust and paint. I ended up with a very wavy truck.

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3m stripit discs work well.

 

They do but can build up heat if concentrated in one area for to long, whats wrong with a good old sandblaster..

 

if your gonna use one make sure your glasses are on and your covered up
you will be picking wires out of your skin regardless if you use them on a grinder
they work well for the scaley stuff

 

Yep... Safety glasses, and wear plenty of thick clothing; a heavy leather apron (like a welding apron) is highly recommended. Keep the wheel moving as they can generate a lot of heat and warp the metal.

 

In my humble opinion the least damaging way to clean metal for body mods is DA sanding/ wire wheel for rust and torch/ hand wire brush for paint and factory seam lead. Sand blasting can have a shot-peening effect and make the steel brittle but in reality unless your doing a car that will require a lot of hammer dolly it wont really matter. Boxy early 30's cars need almost no finessing except a few relief cuts in order to line up properly. Lots of opinions on this board, a lot of which are more educated than mine but Ive cut a lot of cars. Good Luck

 

I'm chopping my 31 A sedan. I'm prolly gonna go a head and buy the DA disks and do it the least damaging way.

 

Just some secondary advice. I like to very neatly tape off a chop rather than mark it out with a sharpy or chaulk or whatever. I use tapes of different sizes and but the edges together to completely mask the piece to be removed. For instance I would use 2" tape lined up neatly in 2 horizontal rows to mask a 4" piece to be removes plus the curf of the cutoff wheels and sawzall blades would net a 4-3/16 chop. Its easy and allows all your cuts to mirror each other.
If you mask and cut neatly, you will not need to adjust any seams to be welded. Good luck and have fun.
Chopping is one of the most fun mods to execute because of the instant gratification when you lay the roof back on.

 

I just found out that they stopped making 2" tape. It's 1.88" now.
Pretty daunting for guys like us who use tape to layout across and around irregular surfaces.

I like a dye chemed surface, taped as needed with a backup scribe line on the dye chem a kerf off the tape. It makes me feel better for some reason.

 

You just blew my mind about the 2" tape, I had no idea.

 

There are different grades of wire wheels. The thinner the wire, the less damage is done to the metal, but the longer it takes to strip stuff.
I'm a beliver in sand blasting as the best way to physically remove rust. Just don't dwell in one spot too long. If somethings not coming off easy, try gently scraping it off. If rust is deeply inbeded into something, you're better off having to fix the metal than painting over it.