Do It Yourself Hot Rod Kustom Website

	Paint Stripping My car was a collection of primers, original green paint and rust, so it was decided that I would strip the paint to bare metal. The goal is to quickly strip the old layers of paint and primer and end up with nice clean bare metal. First off, as I've found out, there is no best way to strip the paint to the bare metal. All have problems. Here's a few methods: Sandblasting You can't use on sheet metal panels cause the heat can supposedly warp the panels. Incredibly messy unless you can take your car to anyplace different from where your garage is situated. The sand gets everywhere which means you have to clean every nook and cranny. You definitely don't want to have any mechanical parts installed or anything that could become damaged from the sand or sand blasting. Sand blasting is quite slow but does an excellent job. It allows you to get into any nook or cranny that you can see. I find that sand blasting is great for small parts or the areas that a wire brush/grinder can't access. It also cleans out rust spots quite well. Hand held Siphon feed sand blaster Pressure sand blaster There are two types of sand blasters: siphon feed and pressure feed. Siphon feed sand blasters suck the sand from a reservoir and require more air pressure to operate. Pressure feed sand blasters pressurize the sand reservoir and need a smaller compressor to run. Another advantage of pressure feed sandblasters is that you can get much finer gun tips than a siphon feed unit. The speed blaster shown above is a great quick sand blast tool. It's very easy to set up and use. I use it about 99% of the time over the pressure blaster mainly because I'm doing small items and areas. The sand is very inexpensive, $7 for a 50 lb bag. Media blasting This is similar to sand blasting but you use some expensive media like crushed wallnut shells or plastic beads. It can work but can cost more money than sand. Usually, you want to recover the media and reuse it to save costs. Sand is so cheap that who cares if it's not used. Again any type of blasting is messy... You do get to wear a full body suit though... Acid dunking Acid dunking is where you take the complete body and dunk it in a bath of acid. This means that the car has to be completely stripped down. It's supposed to work very well, but I've heard of cars that weren't cleaned properly after and the residual acid ate away the part from the inside after a few years. This happened to my buddies' hood where they couldn't clean behind the hood braces properly. Wire Brushing Twisted wire brush on 4 1/2" grinder A wire brush on a 4 1/2" grinder works pretty fast but I've had problems getting through some of the old primers. It worked very well on the firewall and front wheel wells where it looked like there was no primer. It's very messy as the old paint is thrown everywhere as a fine dust. I use it mainly on heavy parts like the frame or undercarriage, or for rough cleaning off surface rust, dirt or tar. 6" Dual Action (DA) sander 6" Dual Action (DA) Sander This is about the best choice so far but you need lots of air pressure 9cfm and 90 psi which translates into a 5 hp compressor and not one of those 120V oiless compressors that peak to 5 hp. The DA sander with 80 grit paper works very well. Chemical removers Chemical stripper They are just plain messy and don't remove as well as you would expect. I happened to have a can of Polystripper around and gave it a try. It works about as well as any other stripper. Usually you have to do several coats to get everything off, rub/scrape the old paint then wash the bare metal and dry before it starts to rust. The chemical drips everywhere and you need a proper respirator. I understand that there are some aircraft quality chemical strippers that work very well but I don't feel like dealing with gallons of chemicals in my air tight garage if you know what I mean. I have read articles where a complete car was stripped in one day out in the driveway. Plastic was laid under the car to catch the drips and several applications were required. I guess for all that mess to strip a car in one day is worth it. Flap Disk Flap disk for 4 1/2" grinder A flap disk is a disk with overlapping layers of sandpaper on it. You use it on your 4 1/2" grinder. They work quite well but can easily cut into the metal leaving gouges. I tried a 40 grit and its brutal, a 60 grit works well if you use a very light touch. A worn 60 grit is ideal. I would really like to try an 80 or 100 grit disk if I could find one. Drill based Paint strippers Drill based paint stripper I picked up one of those paint strippers that you attach to your drill at the local auto parts store. It looked like a pretty good idea as they remind me of sponge toffee but they are brutal. I thought that I would use it for those hard to get places but it really gouges the metal. I found that my drill speed was too slow, heavy and awkward to hold. I experimented and used it with my die grinder (dangerous idea!) it cleaned like a hot damn. Drill press, extension and paint stripper The stripper is only rated for 3500 rpm so using a 10,000 rpm die grinder is a bad idea as there is the chance that the stripper may explode from the rpm (bad thing). Instead, I hooked it up to my drill press using one of those flexible drill extensions and set the drill for 3100 rpm. It works wonderful, its light weight, easy to hold and strips rust and paint cleanly. I have a cheap $70 drill press with a 1/4 hp motor which is perfect for this application. There is one danger in that the drill extension cable can twist itself up when the stripper is pressed to hard. You can easily stall my drill press with your hand so there's no danger of the drill extension cable wrapping itself up and damaging anything. Heat style paint stripper I haven't tried one of those heat style paint strippers that you use on your house, that could be interesting.. Sandpaper on grinder on drill Sandpaper attachment for drill This is a bad combination. The edge of the sandpaper easily gouges the paint and you don't notice it until its too late. The original owner of my car used coarse grit sandpaper to "quickly" sand off the paint in places and I'm paying for it now. I will have to spend "a lot of time" on finishing those areas with finishing putty to get the gouges and scratches out of the metal surface. Strips quickly and spend lots of time on body prep - not worth it... What worked for me On my 54 Pontiac, I found that I have to use a combination of the above. Here's two methods that work for me: Flap disk and DA I used the 60 grit flap disk on a 4 1/2" electric grinder to remove the top paint layer. I use hardly any pressure. The original primer is very tough and the flap disk doesn't remove it easily. There's also too much risk of gouging the metal. The disk worked best when it was well worn - it was more forgiving. Ideally, I would like an 80 or 100 grit disk to try. Next comes the 6" air DA sander with 80 grit paper to remove the old primer. It works great and leaves an excellent surface for the new primer. I only have a 2 hp compressor with about 100 gallons of reservoir so I run the sander at about 70 psi which makes for slow stripping. I would love to have enough air to really use it to its potential. I alternate between the flap disk and the DA as I run out of air. I use the flap disk until the air pressure comes up and the compressor stops (125 psi reservoir). Then fip over to the DA until I run out of air (80 psi reservoir). After the metal is bare, I use a rust remover like Rustoleum or equivalent. NOTE: use gloves as the muratic acid will turn your skin green or worse burn your skin. When it turns your skin green, you can't wash it off (experience talking). You brush on the rust remover and let it dry. Next you clean off the rust remover residual with water and dry. You can use a towel or an air compressor. Finally, I clean the metal with a degreaser. I use acetone cause I happened to have a bottle of it lying around. Wirebrush grinder and drill based stripper I found that the wirebrush on a grinder sometimes works wonders on paint that has no rust. I've used it to clean up the inner fenderwells and firewall quite successfully. If there is lots of tar and dirt, it cleans it up for the next stage. For areas with surface rust and paint that the wirebrush doens't remove. I use the drill pressed based stripper. It works very well. After the metal is stripped, I prepare the surface in the same manner as previously described. IMPORTANT NOTICE Just remember to wear a respirator or good quality dust filter mask because lots of the old paints and primers are lead based. I check to see if my dust filter mask is working by blowing my nose into a kleenex. If the tissue is clean, than the mask is working. I've gone through about 6 throw away style dust masks in the last 3 months. I prefer the dual elastic band style as they seal better around the mouth and the nose. They cost about $3 each. Impromptu stripping room There is quite a lot of dust generated when stripping paint. I wish that I had put up sheets of plastic earlier in my garage to control the dust. It is much worse than regular bodywork which tends to just drop to the floor. The flap disk and DA sander throw the dust every where. I had to vacuum the walls and every inch of the garage. The lead based paint sands to a fine powder that even the vacuum can't pick up. I bought some medium gauge poli and used some C clamps to clamp it to the garage door rails. I have a nice size room to strip the fenders in. Unfortunately, there is still some dust that gets over the top 4" of the plastic and floats around the garage. I wear a dust mask, full face shield and ear protectors and have to take a shower immediately after. It's a horrible job that I'm looking forward to finishing soon.