[Harvey]

Before I paint I am considering having the car sand blasted or micro blasted. I want to ensure every little thing is spotless and then painted as correct as possible. There are a lot of areas that I don't know how one could sand with conventional methods? Which would be better? Just wondering not ready yet.

 

[sidewinder]

I have used soda, media and sand and here is my opinion: Soda blast must be acid washed and sanded with 80 on a DA sander or you will have peeling and blistering. Media is great, but will leave debris that must be cleaned impeccably before any topcoat is sprayed, and sand blasting must be done extremely cautiously or warping will result and sand must be cleaned up the same way as blasting media. In my opinion it matters most how many paint jobs the car has endured, original paint should be dealt with by sanding only. In a nutshell, I have been pissed every time I had someone locally media blast or soda blast my cars, so I lean toward sanding.

Mike

 

[Mistress]

I agree with Sidewinder, hand sanded my 67 (well with da and air boards) but we media blasted Copy Cat He still finds media when he turns on the defroster!!

 

[Harvey]

K, I have absolutely no expierience with this so I am definitely listening! I think the outside of the body would sand alright but what about underneath the car? And up inside of the wheel wells? Now I have a friend of mine that just stripped a car! Actually used some kind of paint stripper on it! Will be real curious to see if he can get paint to stick on it with out it being all screwed up.

 

[sidewinder]

Clean, clean and clean, that is the only thing I can say about dealing with non abrasive prep. I like Castrol Super Clean personally, then I found the holy grail of paint prep... Take a 1/4 inch bolt and cut the head off, use red scotch brite pads and cut them into approximately three inch squares with a hole in the middle. Stack 4-6 pads between two nuts and flat washers on the cut off bolt. Use this tool in a die grinder to scuff areas that are hard to reach. Use sandpaper and scotch brite liberally everywhere else to scuff the factory paint. When faced with spot rust or small areas, then use a sand blaster with 20/30 grit and stay off the surface 12-18 inches. As far as the inside of fenders etc. I would clean it liberally, shoot some enamel reducer on it to soften and put whatever topcoat I wanted on it. Good Luck

Mike

 

[bosselim69]

Harvey,

If you don't mind getting dirty you can do it yourself at: http://www.consolidatedstripping.com/

in Plainwell MI which is about a two hour drive for you. I did my XR7-G myself and the owner Don will guide you so no mistakes are made. If you don't want to do it yourself Don or one of his employees can do it with your supervision. I was just there on Friday to do the rear end, leaf springs and driveshaft out of my 70 Boss Mustang as the items are to large to fit in my cabinet at home. used his large cabnet and cost me $21.00 for an 1 1/2 hours of blasting. I can't buy the media and do it at home in my outside blaster for that price, besides being three times faster. He can also bake the paint off as well.

 

[johnboy]

sandblasting... out of context with cars, we sandblasted steel rails in a slaughterhouse's beef coolers a long time ago. One year after the event, you slapped any support column, and sand would trickle down here and there. Didn't even matter that we had spent one week of cleaning high areas with brooms, air, rags, etc... before starting operations again.

 

[Local Hero]

In 2001, I sanded my 1981 paint job off with 80 grit on a DA. I didn't want to contaminate the bodywork underneath that did not need to be redone.