TheSamba.com :: View topic - soda vs. plastic media blastic vs. alkaline dip

Fri May 02, 2014 2:52 pm

I have found 3 types of ways to strip the pan and the body of my 79 vert within an hour of my home.

One place does soda blasting

two places do plastic media blasting

one place does a double dip- alkaline to dissolve crud and electrophoretic
to remove rust

(the dip is something like 2-3x the expense of blasting)

oh and they all offer to shoot some primer on your car, but I'd much rather prep the surface myself so that the whole paint job doesn't peel off later :roll:

So what to do? I have heard good results and bad results/ horror stories with all the above methods. Please advise! Thanks.

Fri May 02, 2014 5:11 pm

plastic or soda gets my vote

Sat May 03, 2014 8:00 pm

I've had several body shells and a lot of panels media blasted over the years... it gets my vote as the #1 way to get things stripped.

Mike

Sat May 03, 2014 8:06 pm

I have never worked on anything that was "Dipped".......always had the items blasted with great results.

Sun May 04, 2014 6:14 am

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=537709

PS thanks for the input...keep it coming.

Local place has told me plastic won't remove rust that to do that they must use aluminum to blast.

Sun May 04, 2014 9:07 am

my understanding is unless you can neutralize the 'dip' it keeps eating away at stuff.

the only way i would 'dip' is if i could also dip the whole car in epoxy after the fact.

your car will literally rust from the inside out

tried and true sand/soda is the best way to go imho

Sun May 04, 2014 10:40 am

Weezle wrote: http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=537709

PS thanks for the input...keep it coming.

Local place has told me plastic won't remove rust that to do that they must use aluminum to blast.
They told you the truth.

Mon May 05, 2014 2:22 pm

skills@eurocarsplus wrote: my understanding is unless you can neutralize the 'dip' it keeps eating away at stuff.

the only way i would 'dip' is if i could also dip the whole car in epoxy after the fact.

your car will literally rust from the inside out

tried and true sand/soda is the best way to go imho

This... is just wrong.

When you dip the car you first dip it in a warm Base liquid - this strips all the paint, gunk, etc. The BASE is what does most of the eating and stripping. THEN they dip in in a huge acid bath. If you remember your high school chemistry then you'll know this neutralizes the base so theres no more eating of anything from this point on other than rust. Why rust? Well the acid is just standard phosphoric acid. Basically a bulk version of Ospho or many of the other things that Samba peeps put into their cars restoration process without freaking out and thinking it'll eat their car. It won't do anything to your car other than eat rust and protect the metal.

After that it leaves a great protective coating on the metal so it won't flash rust (phos-acid is awesome that way). Most places will do a water dip or hose down then dry it off with towels and leave in a hot curing-type room to evaporate any remaining water.

It's quite simply the hands down best way to strip your car of EVERYTHING. Nothing comes close.

This has downsides:
you need to remove EVERYTHING from the shell. Everything. No chrome, no pot metal, no VIN plate. Everything.It will remove it everywhere - including inside square stock. This can be a good thing, but you need to know it so you can then re-protect the inside of metal.
It's not going to be for everyone but if you're doing a ground up restoration... it's probably the best and quickest way to get to a solid back-to-basics base shell.

Mon May 05, 2014 7:01 pm

abritinthebay wrote:

This... is just wrong.

When you dip the car you first dip it in a warm Base liquid - this strips all the paint, gunk, etc. The BASE is what does most of the eating and stripping. THEN they dip in in a huge acid bath. If you remember your high school chemistry then you'll know this neutralizes the base so theres no more eating of anything from this point on other than rust. Why rust? Well the acid is just standard phosphoric acid. Basically a bulk version of Ospho or many of the other things that Samba peeps put into their cars restoration process without freaking out and thinking it'll eat their car. It won't do anything to your car other than eat rust and protect the metal.

After that it leaves a great protective coating on the metal so it won't flash rust (phos-acid is awesome that way). Most places will do a water dip or hose down then dry it off with towels and leave in a hot curing-type room to evaporate any remaining water.

It's quite simply the hands down best way to strip your car of EVERYTHING. Nothing comes close.

This has downsides:
you need to remove EVERYTHING from the shell. Everything. No chrome, no pot metal, no VIN plate. Everything.It will remove it everywhere - including inside square stock. This can be a good thing, but you need to know it so you can then re-protect the inside of metal.
It's not going to be for everyone but if you're doing a ground up restoration... it's probably the best and quickest way to get to a solid back-to-basics base shell.
This is correct, all of it.

Just don't be forgetting that all the seam sealer removed in the dip will need to be replaced.

Mike

Mon May 05, 2014 9:44 pm

Media (garnet, glass or plastic) on my next restos, as in the past

I do exterior only: Damned if I want to seam-seal and entire car, then re-treat every nook and cranny inside the sills and body reinforcing...

That trebles the effort and costs... on stuff you can't see!

Sun May 11, 2014 5:58 am

I dipped my ghia. It's awesome. EVERYTHING is gone making welding simple and clean.

http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3...p;start=20

A couple pics at the dippers

Mon May 19, 2014 1:20 pm

I vote for water & glass blasting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avcMhRbJgCs

Sat May 31, 2014 12:01 am

I bet I am sounding like the world biggest salesman on this but....If you can, try and look for glass media. Its better than soda, or sand, and probably cheaper than plastic, or dry ice, or walnuts.
You can watch on you tube under "dustless blasting." or the website under the same.
There are other companies that sell the equipment like Farrow and Geoblaster.
Don't have any tips on finding anyone in your area except maybe contacting a glass supplier somewhere, or Farrow/G.blast, and see if they sell to anyone where you are.
Where I live the guy said he would come to my house for $500 for the whole car. I think that is what the you tube Impala video (price) was too.
Hope this helped.

Thu Feb 12, 2015 4:49 pm

I know this is an older thread, but I just got two prices to soda blast my car. Both were $150.00 per hour. $600 to $1200 depending on how many layers of paint that they find.

Fri Feb 13, 2015 12:31 pm

skills@eurocarsplus wrote: the only way i would 'dip' is if i could also dip the whole car in epoxy after the fact.

your car will literally rust from the inside out

This is my concern as well. While dipping your car will remove all the unseen rust inside pillars and behind generally inaccessible panels, it'll also remove all remaining paint as well. I can't imagine the acid coating will protect as well or for as long as good old paint.

Sat Feb 21, 2015 1:01 am

That's why you'd do an e-coating application after or use something like Eastwood's interior frame spray kit.

Being lazy or doing the job half assed isn't an argument against doing it the best way (dipping). Also it came unprotected from the factory so you're at least as good as new ;)

If you don't dip you're just leaving rust there to rot your car. Your call.

Sat Feb 21, 2015 8:30 pm

Until you've dipped a car, spent countless hours prepping, only to see a blob of paint bubbling goop rise out of your 100 hours and 2 grand worth of paint and supplies while baking will you swear to not ever dip again. Soda has always worked well. I'm sure there's other media that works well too.

Sat Feb 21, 2015 10:13 pm

abritinthebay wrote: Also it came unprotected from the factory so you're at least as good as new ;).

ummm, try again.......

Sun Feb 22, 2015 5:26 am

Hello, not sure what the great photos of VW's process is meant to suggest. I like all the old photos by the way. Yes all the cars were dipped in a cleanser and paint when they were virgin steel for the 1st coat. They were also then sanded and painted at least 3 more times with a gun as I recall. A wonderful and expensive process. This is however significantly different than dipping a completely aged and hardened and sometimes several layers of paint. It only takes a couple grams of chemically softened paint across and entire seam to ruin a paint job. The reason I prefer soda is the paint that will never be seen, hidden in a seam, will remain hardened and never come back to haunt you in the oven.