best paint stripper

Could someone post a picture of the scraper that you use. I bought the Lisle razor blade scraper but it doen't do it for me. I break a lot of blades and generally have bad luck. I may be too cautious at the temperature.
 
paint scrappers , floor scrappers or anything else wont get it. razor blades will separate the top coat from the primer. that is the point of using heat .
 
btceng;16313 said:
Could someone post a picture of the scraper that you use. I bought the Lisle razor blade scraper but it doen't do it for me. I break a lot of blades and generally have bad luck. I may be too cautious at the temperature.
I use the Lisle and have not had any problems. Buy a 100+ box of blades, change them often, keep the blade at a very shallow angle ( darn near dragging your knuckles on the paint) and you should do just fine. Don't heat the paint till it smokes, but if you see small blisters you are there.

LIS52000.JPG
 
Yep, SOF, that's the one. I guess it's my technique. Are you saying that you heat it until it blisters or to stop before that happens? I have a 69 Firebird that I'll start soon and it must have 4 or 5 coats of who knows what on it. There's a red coat about two deep that is crackled up and looks like some kind of old lacquer. I would love to get through that stuff without the disc. The paint on that thing clogs the paper almost immediately. Top layer is rattle can primer. Maybe lucky for me that most of the sheetmetal needs replacing. LOL
 
you want just enough heat to turn the paint from brittle to soft. it will come off in blade wide strips then. if your breaking blades stop chipping at it. use the the blade to take about a 1/4 in off at a time until you get the hang of it. you will find areas that dont want to separate but just work around them .
 
btceng;16482 said:
Yep, SOF, that's the one. I guess it's my technique. Are you saying that you heat it until it blisters or to stop before that happens? I have a 69 Firebird that I'll start soon and it must have 4 or 5 coats of who knows what on it. There's a red coat about two deep that is crackled up and looks like some kind of old lacquer. I would love to get through that stuff without the disc. The paint on that thing clogs the paper almost immediately. Top layer is rattle can primer. Maybe lucky for me that most of the sheetmetal needs replacing. LOL

If you see blisters you are to hot
 
Courser grits of paper do not plug up as fast, and the type of paper makes a difference too. Hardware store paper isn't worth a hoot.
3M or Norton both are good, there are others, but I havent used them.
 
Thanks, shine. I've been using the red 3m paper in 80 from my paint supplier. Definitely better than the yellow paper that I first used. You guys are using an electric heat gun, right?
 
shine;16529 said:
i use the little short cheap scraper. easier to control than that long job.

Like the ones used for cleaning windows? I must really be doing something wrong. Should the pressure feel similar to scraping a sticker off of glass?
 
you want to peel strips off. dont chip straight at it. start with a 1/4 in strip. if you chip straight on you break blades and also dont have it soft enough.
 
I found this post while looking for the best way to strip the door jambs on my 67 Mustang. I gave the heat gun method a try and was impressed. After heating up a section I would go over it with a wire brush wheel in a drill and the paint came off quick and easy.
 
DavidL try a wire wheel on a 4 1/2" grinder. Works even faster. Welcome to the site.
 
Shine is right. I stripped my car using the heatgun method after reading about it on here and it works like a champ. The first coat of primer that is left after the razor comes off easily with 80 grit on a DA. It's pretty hard to do on concaved surfaces, but a twisted wire brush on an angle grinder takes care of that. Here is what mine looked like.


View attachment 1156
 
Just "Razor" stripped this Vette (had 4 lacquer paint jobs on it) in less than 2daysBrent 72 Vette 010.jpg

Brent 72 Vette 009.jpg

Brent 72 Vette 012.jpg

Brent 72 Vette 002.jpg

Brent 72 Vette 007.jpg
 
Think I'm going to go this route instead of using a chemical stripper. What wattage gun is the best? Should it be a back-and-forth motion over a panel or just the smallish area that the blade will scrape at the time?

Thanks
Dan
near Augusta GA
 
razor blade works best of all. just warm the paint ahead of the blade. you'll get the hang of it after a few minutes.
 
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