We are working on a friend of mines 51 F1. We got a straight hood for it, but it has at least 6 coats of paint and whatever. We want to take it to metal and do the bodywork from there. Any tools or method to take this paint off quickly without hand sanding? Sand blasting is not an option.

 

I used some aresol can paint stripper from Auto Zone and it works great. Bubbles up and peals right off. Makes a heck of a mess though - and the fumes just can't be good for you!

 

get a D/A sander with 60 or 80 grit...you can get either air powered or now avail in electric.....a hood is small enough to do it this way...a whole truck might take some work........chemicals are a pain because so often there is residue that gets missed on clean up and its horrors when the new paint bubbles up....

 

I understand Por-Strip works pretty good. It's from Por-15.

http://www.por15.com/product.asp?productid=188

 

I have a car builder/painter friend who uses straight edge razor blades to remove paint. He just completed doing this on a Model A frame. I've never tried it but he says it goes pretty fast. Key is always using a sharp razor. Probably takes a few for a hood.

 

I would go with the chemical stripper. It's cheaper and faster than using a DA and 40 cent a disc sand paper. But as buffalobob mentioned, they can come back to haunt you after you have the final coat of paint applied. When I use chemical strippers I tape off all of the seams, strip up to the tape and after I have all of the chemical cleaned off I remove the tape and finish with a mechanical method, either sanding or sandblasting. You will have the majority of the paint stripped off and only have paint the width of the tape to remove.

It works for me.

 

Why is media (NOT sand!) blasting not an option? Since the hood is off, taking it to a blaster would be better, cheaper, quicker than any other method, and no downside.

 

I have a friend going to WyoTech for street rod building right now and they also learned to strip a car with razor blades. I tried it and had trouble.

I just use the "Clean and Strip" discs from 3M. I pick them up at my local Lowe's store. They work really fast and aren't too expensive. You could probabily strip the hood with 2 of them at about $10 each. I'm guessing that blasting will cost about $100 - $150 based on stuff that I've had done.

 

AX- as far as sandblasting, it my friends choice. I think he saw an episode of American HotRodding and saw a car come back with holes in the metal after being sandblasted. LOL... I agree with you on sandblasting. I could get it done for about $50.

The razor idea is good, but you really need to know what your doing. I tried it once and the razor dug cuts into the metal/ surface that really needed to be sanded out. It ended up being more work than sanding it originally. I used a carbide scraper blade on my frame and it stripped the old paint down to the metal.

We may try the stripper method with the aerosol can and do sections at a time vs. the whole hood. then once the paint is stripped sand it down real good.

Svooom- I haven't seen the 3M strip wheels? Sounds like a good thing. Does it hook up to a drill? and does it create alot of dust, etc. Thanks for the help guys. Good advice.

 

That's because the holes were already there! That's the whole purpose of media blasting, it strips everything down to the bare metal so you can see any hidden problems. If the metal is media blasted (walnut shell mixed with plastic media is the material of choice) It will not remove any metal, but will remove bondo, fiberglass, etc. Never sandblast or bead blast metal panels. You MUST remove/neutralize any traces of stripper that seeps into seams etc. or the paint will lift later, a difficult task at best, much harder than the stripping itself. The clean and strip wheels look like plastic steel wool and mount on a drill or rotary sander.

 

imlowr2,
The 3M discs that I buy thread directly onto my 4.5" angle grinder and it does create a tremendous amount of dust. You can also get them for your drill. I use a full face shield with dust mask and try to do it outside. It's messy buy works real well.

 

What I've done when I've gotten frustrated at the numerous coats of paint: Put part on sawhorses well away from house or car that has paint on it that you don't want to get in trouble for screwing up. Use a good chemical stripper on part as mentioned. Let work til it's fairly dry 30-45 minutes, then hit it with a round wire brush on a drill, which will take off the layer that's bubbled up really fast. Then apply stripper again, and do as many cycles as necessary. Of course wear old long pants and long sleeve shirts with gloves and full face mask. I know it's crude but it's satisfyingly quick. I usually finish the last of the paint off rubbing it down with lacquer thinner. Any remaining rust can then be sanded or wire brushed off. A sanding disk on a PADDED backing plate works wonders for the final sanding/stripping. A plain hard rubber backed sanding disk will gouge the metal if you're not careful.

 

We do our stripping with "Aircraft Stripper" which is available at most auto stores. About $20.00 a gallon. Brush it on, let it bubble, scrape off, re-apply, let bubble, rub with scotch brite and hose off. Works great and not that messy. Tim

 

I use Aircraft Stripper all the time myself.. here 3 major tips to take heart with it.. Never use it in the sun.. Use in well ventilated areas.. And dont let it dry on the surface ( that just makes more work for urself ) But otherwise its great stuff.. wipe on and scrap of with a bond-o knife.. News paper every thing U dont want it on and on the floor for easy clean up..

 

I was just reading about a product I believe is called Safe T Strip (I'll check on the name and manufacturer tomorrow) that is supposed to work very well, has no fumes and is water soluable! That should make clean up and neutralization much easier.