Restoration Work.

Thanks for the reply Tom and posting those pics. Your car certainly looks fresh of the production line.

I have certainly heard a lot of talk about soda and also some reservations on the fact that it leaves a residue which could affect the paint, I assume that's what you meant by cleaning it properly. Is soda then 'THE' media for stripping paint now or is there still some arguement about what works best?

Does anyone know what the big restoration shops like Classic and exotics in MI use?

Tom_Parkinson wrote: Put the car in waterproof primer asap or you'll end up doing it again. (Wanna guess how I learned THAT?).

Which answered my question, "Why did you have to do the car twice?"

That did do a beautiful job...looks like a half-finished Cord on the assembly line.

Hi Paul,

Having had the Old Lady cleaned twice, I have a bit of experience with this. Years ago the large-scale options were limited to sandblasting and chemical stripping. Both had and have shortcomings--sandblasting ate metal and warped panels from heat, and chemical stripping caused subsequent problems at goo-trapping areas of sheet metal.

Then crushed glass and plastic media blasting came along and were cooler and less abrasive to the metal than sand. Glass will scour away rust, but it also scours away precious metal. Plastic media takes off paint and leaves embedded rust, but does not eat metal. My car was done the first time with plastic, and I was more than satisfied.

Now there is an even better system--SODA blasting. It is completely gentle to the metal and does an excellent cleaning job. The 2nd time the Old Lady was cleaned I had it done with soda, and I could not have been happier with the result. Even the still-attached wood parts behind the back seat cleaned up and looked like new--without damage from the cleaning. See the attached photo.







Two words of caution: 1) if you decide to do the blasting yourself, be sure to wear protective equipment, especially a filtered respirator mask. Follow industry safety standards. 2) Corrosion starts right away when you have cleaned an area. Touch the bare steel only when wearing latex gloves or you'll have black handprints of rust the next day. Put the car in waterproof primer asap or you'll end up doing it again. (Wanna guess how I learned THAT?). Your blasting service should have a paint booth into which they can immediately wheel the car to gobber it up in primer for you.

--Tom


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I was wondering how the restoration guys strip paint off the bodywork of the really valuable sheetmetal. If blasting what kind of media? hand sanding? Chemical stripper? On a car where every speck of metal can probably be measured by the dollar there must be a specific way of doing it.

Hope this is the right forum if not can one of the mods please move to the right one.

Thanks for any information.