This has come up before and it seems every lister has their own favourite
method and reasons to support it. For myself, I have had 2 cars stripped to
bare metal, one by sand-blasting, the other by bead blasting - both
methods recomended by different auto refinishing shops (including one guy I
have known for over 25 years). Some issues to consider include:
1 Chemical stripping produces lots of toxic gunk - if doing it yourself what
are you going to do with it? 2 Blasting (plastic media these days) is best
done by a specialist, will get you a quick turnaround (ie the
vehicle can go to a refinisher faster) but may cost more (although you should
get a quote and then compare it with the cost of buying and disposing of
chemicals etc). 3 Some people say blasting leaves lots of media
in the vehicle - I never found this a huge problem so I suspect it depends on
who does it for you. Also the Alpine body shell is relatively simple. 4
Blasting is said to damage existing filler less than heat or
chemicals but this seems debatable and may not be an issue for complete
restorations on classic cars - do you want 25 year old filler under your new
paint anyway? 4 - Heat stripping is more likely to cause panel
distortion than the other methods - (some say blasting also risks this but it
was not a problem on either car I restored).
I considered chemicals (rejected because of the toxic gunk disposal), wire
brushing (rejected for time issues), heat (time again, and panel shop advice)
and selected blasting by a shop recommended by the refinishers
because of turnaround time, and the cost wasn't that great when considered in
the overall cost of getting the panel and paint done (it was less than 10% of
the total cost). Both times both I and the panel shops were
happy.
My $A0.02 worth
Vic
RSWiser@aol.com wrote:
> While we are on the subject of stripping paint. I am just about to embark on
>that very task. What, in everyones opinon is the best way to totally strip
>and Alpine. No I am not going to sand blast the entire car.
>
> Thanks for the responses.
>
> Rob
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