What is the best product to use for sand blasting? I've got ten days off over xmas and New Years and am going to try to completely strip my car and get it into primer and so I'm trying to line everything up so when I get my time off, I'm going to crank this out.
You don't want to sandblast exterior body panels! You will most likely warp them....Pro's will use plastic media, or baking soda for sheetmetal. Other stripping methods are chemical paint stripper, or #36 disks on a DA or disc sander.
Cheapest, easiest way is to go to Home Depot and use Kleen Strip, stripper. Use gloves, long style, and do one panel at a time. Usually takes me 1 hr per panel. Gallon of Strip-x costs about $15/gall. Depending on paint layers, should take 5-6 gallons of stripper. Use a plastic body filler spreader, to remove goo while it is still wet. Once you get down to e-prime(black surface) use lacquer thinner to wipe down surface. You can get lacquer thinner at Home Depot.
media The place I frequent in Suffolk,Va. uses iron oxide. Be careful blasting thin sheetmetal. Bad experience.
Yeah, I was going to use chemical stripper on the body panels but do have some rust spots I was going to blast. Plus, my trunk is rotted out so I wanted to blast that to make sure that I get to solid metal when I put a new trunk in.
Rust removal I think you would be better off cutting out the rust a few inches beyond. Sand blasting makes a big mess. Sifted playsand is what I use because it's easy to get and it's cheap. I'd go with a combo of chemical and DA with 80 grit. No need to remove the e coat at all. Older cars have gray e coat from what I've seen. That can remain. If you do strip completely, you'll need to replace e coat with self etching primer. Also don't forget to use weld through primer between welded panel seams. Xtreme paint (Phils friend)
Blast Danger To not ruin your lungs Play sand is not good . It needs to be a silacate free blast sand, Been there done that, started car resto at 16 now 43 ASE Cert. tec. and the first time I did it later i thought I was going to DIE. COULD NOT BREATH . SO Please use a silacate free blast sand and resporator and hood .. ,And yes small areas are ok to use a fine sand as NO flat pannel areas though as they will warp but a hole is ok so you san see how much to cut out .
