Back to Stainless for a painted car

[mpolzin]

Hi all,

I know a number of other have struggled with painted cars and a desire to get them back to stainless, so I thought I would share this one due to the fact that the results were pretty amazing. I purchased a painted Delorean several years ago and have been slowly working on the restoration the car. When the car was originally painted, a self-etching primer was used and the car was painted red, at some point later on the car was painted again; this time black. I attempted to strip the car using a chemical stripper as I had on another Delorean I had restored about 12 years ago, but the self-etching primer was a killer. I was looking at many hundreds of hours of effort, and it simply wasn't worth the effort.

I don't really like painted Deloreans (no offence to those who do, its just a personal preference) and didn't want to repaint the car so after a bit more research I stumbled upon soda blasting, which is similar to sand blasting but uses baking soda instead of sand as the blasting medium. Unlike sand blasting the baking soda does not damage rubber, plastic or glass so it really minimizes the amount or prep work. I should however note that it can damage fiberglass so care needs to be taken where fiberglass is exposed if soda blasting is being done nearby. Covering fiberglass with duct tape seems to do it.

I found a local company called Superior Polymer that was able to come out and do it and the price was reasonable, so I decided to give it a try. They used the soda blasting in home restorations after fires, and had never done a car before but were willing to give it try. The results were pretty amazing, and the car was completed in half of a day. Here is a video of the drivers side front quarter panel being soda blasted.

http://deloreanrestoration.blogspot....stainless.html (blog post with video)

(Standalone video on YouTube)


I have to say the results were impressive. Even the insides of the doors hand been painted on this car, and the soda was able to easily get the paint out of any nooks and crannies. It would be quite difficult for anyone to even know that this car had ever been painted. Rather than stripping paint for hundreds of hours I will be able to work on more important items on the car, and to be quite honest I would never strip a car myself again.

Prep work is necessary because the medium does get all over the place. I removed the T-Panel and rear quarters so they could be done off the car and minimize the amount of medium that would get into the engine compartment. Because I needed to do the insides of the doors and the interior was toast on the car I just wrapped the dash area in plastic and called it good. This process does need to be done outside, because everything within 100 feet of the car will have some soda dust on it -- it literally gets everywhere, a small price to pay in my opinion, after a good rain the mess was cleaned up. We did also lay plastic under the car and our 20 or so feet to catch most of the medium and paint could be rolled up in the plastic and disposed of.

I have lots more video of the process if folks are interested. I just posted the one 10 minute segment so people could see how it works.

Mike

[Timebender]

Wow that makes fast work of it!
Reminds me of the scene from the end of "One Froggy Evening" with Michigan J. Frog, where the workman is using a disintegrator to get rid of a building..

[Farrar]

That's pretty awesome! Are you going to re-grain the metal or will you stay with the "matte finish"?

[mpolzin]

That's pretty awesome! Are you going to re-grain the metal or will you stay with the "matte finish"?

The grain is still there, the reason is looks like is has a matte finish is because of the dust the settles out from the baking soda, once the car was wiped down it was shiny. The stainless is actually in very nice shape and will need minimal re-graining, really only in areas that were scuffed previous to the paint being applied. The baking soda is not abrasive, so it does no damage to the stainless.

[mpolzin]

Wow that makes fast work of it!
Reminds me of the scene from the end of "One Froggy Evening" with Michigan J. Frog, where the workman is using a disintegrator to get rid of a building..

The tools looks pretty similar, except that this one just disintegrates paint!

[DavidProehl]

Never would have guessed this was possible to do without damage, but I had never heard of soda blasting before. Amazing. Nicely done!

[ccurzio]

That was incredibly satisfying to watch. I stayed with it from beginning to end.

I would love to not be an idiot and understand how this can strip paint so easily yet not damage rubber or plastic at all.

[Farrar]

I would love to not be an idiot and understand how this can strip paint so easily yet not damage rubber or plastic at all.

The only thing I've managed to find on the Internet is that it is classified as a "soft abrasive." Seems like a contradiction in terms, but there you have it.

In fact, it seems to be so soft that some websites I looked at caution people that it may only remove a small layer of surface rust, and the people blasting parts for rust removal may wish to use a harsher medium if they want to get further.

Fascinating...

[burch]

That is awesome. Really fun to watch

[Dangermouse]

In my work life I have seen soda blasting, and even dry-ice blasting, used to remove material build up on ceramic insulators. Walnut shells are used to remove even concrete from these insulators (think large power pole cable insulators).

Never thought to use them to remove paint on a car.

Mike, if you don't mind me asking, what would they charge for this sort of thing?