TheSamba.com :: View topic - lots and lots of paint , trying to strip, help

Wed Feb 02, 2005 3:04 am

thanks for looking , i just got a 69 bug i wanna strip it and repaint it . due to me being broke i have to do the body work myself . after a hr of sanding i got ot bare metal in a 1 foot round circle . there is at least 7 coats of paint on this car . i bought some auto paint remover from pep boys and tryed it , it took off the first layer with no problem . but then have to reapply to the area again and again . to get it to where i can see metal . maybe there is a better product out there. or a better way of sanding it . witch i was doing but there is so much dust and it 18 deg outside ,( virginia) , sucks . but yea so its in the garadge and sanding even with the door open covers everything. so should i try to get a stripper to get it off of just tell the woman to get anything she dont want coverd in paint chips out ! lololollol. please let me know , also off the beaten subject anyone know where the hasard lights are in a 69 its not on the dash ! :?

Wed Feb 02, 2005 6:23 am

After using both methods for various projects, I'd say you're better off using the sander. The chemical strippers are just as tedious, and probably take longer, unless you can get a super-powerful one. Even then, it'll still take a while to get through 7 coats of paint...

Wed Feb 02, 2005 6:31 am

How about sand blasting it? If you have a good air compressor all you need is the blaster. Some rental places rent them. You can also buy a decent one for $150. Sand is cheap too. I'll PM you a link of really cheap blasters.

Wed Feb 02, 2005 6:53 am

what kind of sander are you using?? are you sanding it by hand? here's what i did.... i used a circular sander (it moves in a circle, not one that vibrates) hooked to an air compressor. no compressor? no worries, i happen to know that they make decent electric models too. use a heavy grit paper (they sell circular sanding discs in heavy grit that stick onto these sanders at places like autozone pep boys and sears). it should go down to metal in a matter of seconds. unfortunately, the metal is now really scratched, so move down to a less harsh grit to smooth it out. finallly, use a wee bit (and i do mean a wee bit, with filler less is more) of body filler to fill in those last small scratches. if you use a "high fill" primer, you might not need to do that last step. try it and see if it works. i have tried sand blasting before with good results, the only thing is that if you dont like the amount of dust the sanding is generating, imagine how much will be generated with a sandblaster. its pretty messy, and you will be finding sand in your car for awhile afterward. an added bonus of having a circular sander is that many times you can buy a buffer attachment to buff out your new paint.

Wed Feb 02, 2005 7:28 am

did you try oven cleaner?

Wed Feb 02, 2005 7:48 am

Buy a DA sander, the stripping method is a bad idea, it will get into everything and those places will rust because you cannot really prime or paint them. Also don't strip or sand it until you're ready to prime or you'll have surface rust to deal with too.

Wed Feb 02, 2005 7:53 am

I've always preferred chemical stripping. I use Jasco Aircraft Paint Stripper available from Home Depot. Cost about $26/gallon and with 7 coats of paint, you may need 5-6 gallons to do the car.

Wed Feb 02, 2005 8:26 am

yea i have 2 da sanders , with the sandding paper with holes to dispence the grit outward. it does work ok i think i was running 60-80 grit . but man i did half of a door and everything in the garadge was coverd with dust and paint chips . yea i am useing the aircraft paint remover , work like a champ on the first layer ! i thank you guys alot for the help and did i hear oven cleaner ????? anyways thanks for the imput . also i have sandable primer i am applying to the raw metal to keep it from flash rusting , it will be flat black for a wile .

Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:01 am

My two cents to this.

I am in the same boat as you man, I have a project car I want to repaint soon, I have very little money and want to do most, if not all of the work myself.

I was thinking it might not be too expensive to find a self storage place that has power in the bay. Then bring in a big electric heater, the car, and all my tools. To be nice to the establishment I would hang plastic from all the walls and across the floor (something that could be done in the garage if not for all my crap). This would allow cleanup to be quicker and more complete. Then build a small wall of plywood that would allow me to prop a few house fans (you know the ones you stick in the window in the summer) under the bay door but block out the rest of the door. I would wear a very good .5 micro(?) respirator with this setup of course (unless you like paint particulate in your lungs), you know the kind you wear for spraying bug stuff or crawling in crawl spaces, not the cheap paper kind you wear to sand sheet rock. Then use my sanders with my shop vac pulling as much of the dust from the sander as possible. If this works I assume I could probably keep this going and paint the car in this environment.

Any opinions?

Big

Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:15 am

I used the aircraft paint remover, though mine only had two coats of color and two coats of primer. The trick is leaving it on for at least 30 minutes. You may have to increase that a bit in the cold. Maybe, maybe not. The only tough parts it had was digging through bondo. Other than that, it was paint it on thickly, leave it for 45 minutes, then scrape it off with a puddy knife. Half the car was done in just a couple hours.

Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:30 am

I did this very thing. Stick with sandind.

To deal with the dust issue, I went to Home Depot and bought a couple of rolls of like plastic (i think 3 mil) and just lined the walls with it. It worked great.

Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:23 pm

Minimise the headaches, and end up with a tool that has many uses, to boot.
Buy a heatgun. Sears, DeepHomo, Lowes, WallyMart, it doesn't matter.
Use it to warm the paint just enough to soften it so a scraper will remove it. If you use a blunt, springy putty knife, you will be able to just scrape off large amounts- FAST. The nice thing is, you speed up the process, and have a means of disposing of the paint that you've removed, in an environmentally sound fashion.
Volkswagen and Porsche were both very thoughtful, in that they baked the two coats of primer. This enables you to remove the outer layers of paint, usually without taking off the primer, which is great.
You really don't want to remove the primer, unless you are dealing with rust, in which case, you'll only want to remove the primer directly adjacent to the rust area. There is no better primer than the original baked-on stuff from the factory.
Having worked as a restoror of VWs and Porsches for years, I've found the heatgun to be the best method by far. It also makes removal of old adhesives and undercoating a breeze.

Wed Feb 02, 2005 2:59 pm

joemac wrote: Minimise the headaches, and end up with a tool that has many uses, to boot.
Buy a heatgun. Sears, DeepHomo, Lowes, WallyMart, it doesn't matter.
Use it to warm the paint just enough to soften it so a scraper will remove it. If you use a blunt, springy putty knife, you will be able to just scrape off large amounts- FAST. The nice thing is, you speed up the process, and have a means of disposing of the paint that you've removed, in an environmentally sound fashion.
Volkswagen and Porsche were both very thoughtful, in that they baked the two coats of primer. This enables you to remove the outer layers of paint, usually without taking off the primer, which is great.
You really don't want to remove the primer, unless you are dealing with rust, in which case, you'll only want to remove the primer directly adjacent to the rust area. There is no better primer than the original baked-on stuff from the factory.
Having worked as a restoror of VWs and Porsches for years, I've found the heatgun to be the best method by far. It also makes removal of old adhesives and undercoating a breeze. ok that is a tried and true method worked really well i had the whole car down to the primer in about one hour. you go to the hardware store and buy a wood chisel they are like ten bucks. i did not use the heat gun but here is my method. first of i will warn you do not get ahead of yourself do slow strokes and keep the right angle think of it as shaving the paint. once you have found the right angle of your stroke it will all chip off if you did it right it will come off in long strips what is left under is a sorta shiny primer. please be careful because if you do it at the wrong angle you will gouge the metal but no worries you can grind it or sand that down. i did it on my 68 that had like 6 or 7 different colors on it and once i had it down to the primer i just got an electric sander and went to work. it works best on cars with thick layers of paint yours sounds like mine so try it. i've done two cars like that mine and my friends super you'll be surprised how fast it is and how much you'll save on the sandpaper.peace

Wed Feb 09, 2005 11:59 pm

trying to put up a pic , anyways yea i let it sit longer and it just dryed up and got hard again i guess cause of the cold ! i did the stiff scrapper and puch chizzleing it away method . worked pritty good , what sucks is i have a adjustable industral heat gun i use for tenting windows ! never thoguht to use it , duh , . but yea i guess i messed up cause mine is totaly shiney there was even this gun metal very thin layer on the serfice of the metal.
but i had already gone that far so i kept going! is that going to be a problem ???

Thu Feb 10, 2005 1:37 pm

You just reminded me of something that we had happen to a customer at my dad's powder coating shop a month of so ago. The customer has one of the eastwood powder coating guns and ended up screwing up some sheetmetal pieces he was working on. We told him to go back and strip it by hand using aircraft paint remover. Normally this is a pain in the butt, but still manageable. He came back a week or so later complaining that the stripper wasn't even touching the powder. Finally we asked him if the garage he was working in was heated. Read the directions on the paint remover. It needs to be at 65F before it will work and as someone stated earlier put it on thick and let it sit for half an hour or so.

Mike
59 single, 66 bug, 69 bus, 73 super

Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:40 pm

and to cut down on how much you use, smear the sludge you scrape off onto another section, basically reusing it. Once that sludge isn't doing the job anymore, put it in a paint tray or whatever to dry out. Once dry, toss it in the trash. :)

Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:46 pm

yea i know what the jug said but when its 17-18 deg outside and its not a heated garadge and all you have is a karoseen heater it's kinda hard to get it that warm and keep it that way , not to mention the fumes from the stripper so got to have a exhaust fan ( that blows the fumes out ) . so i had to struggle . it took 2 gallons to get it all off its almost there, little bit of sanding left to get the little tight spots off ! but yea thanks alot guys for all the imput . it was a real pain in the but ad at first i dident know if was going to all come of.f i just didnt want my paint looking wavey due to not takeing it all. hears a pic ( if it works ) to show you where i stand , well the handles are off and the widshield whipers and starting to fill i the trim holes ( the horror ) :lol: but thanks again guys
[img] https://www.thesamba.com/vw/gallery/pix/192048.jpg [/img]

Thu Feb 10, 2005 2:56 pm

Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:03 pm

this is after takeing 4 coats off ! yea i had a hell of a time gettting it all off! ****** WAIT******** HERES A LITTLE GAME ! who can count the difrent clolor's this car has been ? :lol: :lol: :? haha too funny

thanks again guys , and i must say that this is the only vw sight i go to , due to it being the best by far and the fact that someone like me who knows nothing , can learn so much in less then a month just reading this sight . i only hope that ne day i will be someone helping others with there problems ! thaks again

Thu Feb 10, 2005 3:29 pm

if chemical stripper isnt your thing, a nice DA with 80 or 100 will blow thru this job somewhat easily. of course your compressor will have to be up for the challenge and you're gonna spend a few bucks on DA paper but in an hour you should be able to knock out a whole panel.........even with 7 coats. good luck!