I'm gonna break this topic in!

E

earlysecond

While the board was down, I began a tear down and a second attempt at restoring my 1970 Camaro. It wore a 7 year old amateur paint job as seen in my avatar.

Since I sprayed urethane sealer and topcoats over ungassed/unsanded lacquer primer. . .I can peel all of the urethane products off of the car in big sheets.

The rest of the thick lacquer primer needs to be stripped. Recently, I have been using rapid paint stripping wheels from Norton and the last from HF. They work OK but seem to be too fast mounted on an angle grinder and melt and clog the wheel if you use any more than the lightest pressure you can apply. I am wondering if I would be better off mounting these to a polisher/buffer and cranking the speed down.

I have done everything in my power, to this point, to avoid chemical stripping. Certainly I have used chemical strippers in the past. Straight gun was WILL take off the primer I am attemtping to remove but MAN what a mess.

So Any suggestions? I can use chemicals, prefer not to. I can use a DA and aggressive paper but the compressor works too hard. I have a sandblaster and there are parts I will have to use that for.

Is there really a good way to strip paint. . . I have not found it yet!
 
Like you, I have tried everything in the past 35 years.
If its not getting blasted i have resigned my self to grabbing a box of 80 grit and a DA and setting on my little stool.

Nice part is, Lacquer does sand off easy but as far as liquid strippers, by time you clean up the mess, just not sure it saves any time.
 
just kidding. if your going to sand it off i would use a jitter bug with 80 wet. mix some dawn soap and water in a good spray bottle and keep it wet enough to cut.
but the best money you could ever spend would be for a media blasting job. using acrylic you can peel it clean without harming anything else.
 
I take my big air body grinder with 36 grit and go over it really fast cutting most of the heavy stuff without going down to metal and without putting heat into everything. Then I www.sunchasertools.com for their strip it discs. I use the red ones with his makita grinder. By far the best version of the stripping discs I've found but I still like to speed it up with my body grinder. I hold it flat, keep sharp sanding discs on it, and never stop moving it. Kinda like buffing. I've given up on chemical strippers as they always seem to bite me somewhere on the job. I've been switching a lot to media blasting also as I've keep upgrading my equipment for that and running low pressures to control.
 
Are you using the 6" black discs or the purple ones?
I hope they last a really long time for that amount of money. I tried the "Beast" stripper discs but they seem to disappear awful fast when using them.
Right now I am using Blue Max 40 grit to strip the top heavy layers and then 80 grit to finish up.
 
I buy the 8" red ones that replaced the purple. I used to use the purple but the red are supposed to be better but I couldn't tell much difference. I have used two 8" red discs to strip a 51' cadillac convertible in the past. I did buzz it with the body grinder first though. The black ones don't last as long but they are flexible for contours as the red ones are kinda stiff. I've used other kinds and I spent more time changing them then using them. The cadillac had been stripped before but it was refinished with DP40 epoxy,k36 filler primer, and a laquer topcoat so the finish was thick and the dp40 is tough. These discs leave the metal in great condition when featheredging and they aren't the only solution but definetly needed in my stripping arsenal.
 
i use to go to my trusted razor blade first just in case. some would peel in a day. but now i'm spoiled with the blasting booth. :p
 
shine;251 said:
i use to go to my trusted razor blade first just in case. some would peel in a day. but now i'm spoiled with the blasting booth. :p
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Yes that is the way to go. I have very limited options in that department (small town) and the one guy that was doing it warped my friend's '57 Chevy hood so bad that he had to buy another one. Needless to say I'm afraid to send anything to him.
 
Nothing wrong with removing most of the paint and primers with chemical strippers IMO. I usually coat the panels with a thick layer and cover with some masking plastic to keep it wet longer, peel off the plastic and a lot of the paint will come off with it, scrape off what is left, scrub it well with water-(very important step), then remove anything left with sanding, clean-n-strip discs, blasting on jambs and window openings.....
 
I always use chemical strippers. As far as mess goes, It's a lot cleaner in my opinion. No dust in the air getting into everything. If you have a big shop it maybe a different story. But when you are doing body/prep work and paint all in the same spot dust is not your friend! I use the plastic trick as well. But I also lay plastic on the floor which makes cleanup a snap! If the weather is good I roll the car outside to keep the smell down in the shop. Just my $.02 :)
 
I have also been using chemical stripper for the same reasons as Dub described. I have since been reading some of the issues people have had using it, particularly in neutralizing the chemicals before hitting the surface with a DA and sealing with Epoxy primer.

Anyone have any tips on the best way to neutralize the stuff?

My current procedure is to strip a section of a panel (2' x 2') and rinse thouroughly immediately afterward with a wet rag and a bucket of fresh water. After I finish with an entire panel (some patches of primer and bondo is usually left behind) I rinse again with water mixed with dishwashing soap. Also, before I start I tape off any crevices and holes and stay away from those areas to keep the stripper out. Is this sufficient? If I do get the stripper is any tight crevices, what should I do to make sure I neutralize the chemicals?

Thanks for any advice you may have.

Chris
 
Use warm soapy water, apply with a red scotch pad and rinse with water, actually work best when stripper is dried, unlike an acid.
In other words, you can do the car the next day or a week later.
 
Thanks for the feedback. Looks like I have been doing some extra work.

On the leftover patches of primer and bondo, does some residual chemical stripper get left behind? Can I just sand these patches off after washing the panel with warm soapy water?
 
Not sure I understand but if you are asking if stripper gets on filler?? Answer is there is no saving the filler, must be ground off.

Stripper will continue to destroy the filler at a slow pace for years to come.

That is why, gm always said, no stripper around bonding seams.
 
I guess I am just overly cautious about leaving any acid on the surface. My concern is that if the bondo absorbs the stripper, when I sand it off will some that stripper contaminate my panel somehow? I think you've basically answered this already. Thanks for the info!

Chris
 
Dub;317 said:
I always use chemical strippers. As far as mess goes, It's a lot cleaner in my opinion. No dust in the air getting into everything. If you have a big shop it maybe a different story. But when you are doing body/prep work and paint all in the same spot dust is not your friend! I use the plastic trick as well. But I also lay plastic on the floor which makes cleanup a snap! If the weather is good I roll the car outside to keep the smell down in the shop. Just my $.02 :)
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I usually do this as well. After this a strip-it disc similar to the one that Sunchaser Tools sells is used to clean up anything that the stripper doesn't get.

Most of the time I can find the strip-it disc's at swap meets, does anyone have another source for these?
 
There's a few suppiers, Norton Beartex (sp?) is alot tougher and lasts longer than 3M but 3M is also good. I see Eastwood sells some larger ones. Klingspor also has a good selection but I haven't tried that brand yet.
 
I've had very good luck with a wire wheel on a 4.5" grinder to clean up the small spots. Very little heat and no warping.
 
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