Car Paint Stripping

Process of car paint stripping can be very dirty especially if your car paint is very old. It can also be time consuming as it most of the time last about three days or even more in cases when you are about to strip a whole car. There are some different procedures when doing this type of a job, but in any case you should focus on one panel at a time. Sanding, scraping, media blasting and chemical stripping are all methods that can be used for paint stripping, but for doing the job at home, the best ways are probably sanding or scraping.

Sanding and scraping

Prepare yourself for a job with air compressor and a dual-action sander loaded with 80-grade paper. If your purpose is to strip the entire car then buy a roll of the self-adhering discs and change them frequently. To prevent to much heat in selected area when wielding a DA, don't hold it in one spot and push down with a lot of power, instead of doing that, fan it out over a broad surface the way you would a buffer. Scraping paint off a panel using razor blades is possible in some cases, but that is not often as you must be very relaxed and precisive, however this procedure doesn't produce dust and won't heat up the metal.

Media blasting

This is the process of propelling media particles from a blast machine using the power of compressed air. This converts media particles and compressed air into an effective cleaning treatment that requires skill and proper equipment. Soda blasting is a popular method for paint removing especially from surfaces that would be destroyed by sand, like fiberglass. However this step requires some more space than some other ones. For the entire car work, It is better to use bigger blaster. Usually car enthusiasts uses smaller blasters, that are great for smaller car parts and spots, but are not so useful when doing the process of entire car stripping. Some body shops does rent it so that is a possible way.To protect areas that won't be blasted use couple of layers of duct tape. After blasting the panel then sand it with 80 to 100 grade paper and also after doing that prime it to prevent rust.

Chemical stripping

On the market there are available a lot of chemical paint stripping products to our disposal. Chemical stripping requires a lot of patience and time, but on the other hand is a great way to doing the job without damaging the car. It will remove one layer at a time when there are multiple paint layers on a vehicle. Use paintbrush to apply it, wait some time, and then scrape it off. Do this stuff on a small areas at a time, applying the stripper over and over until the body is bare. It's a good idea to put a tarp down to make cleanup easier, and the entire car should also be washed with soap and water after using the stripper.