TheSamba.com :: View topic - Removing aftermarket paint to get OG paint

Fri Apr 15, 2011 6:39 pm

stale air wrote:

Ghiaddict wrote: ^^^ Excellent work.

I plan to do this on my 1974 KG 'vert which was
originally Olympic Blue but the PO painted it Pearl White.

I hope it will turn out as well as yours.

Ya wow, great work. It may have been super time consuming, but the end result is incredible. That dash looks awesome. Makes you wonder what people were thinking when they decided to repaint over such nice paint. :roll:

Thanks, Stale Air - I think I can shed some light on your question. I've been lucky enough to have made contact with the woman who owned this car from 1973-2007. She purchased it in a somewhat abused condition from a college student and said it was a mess. Times being what they were (this was the 70's after all) She decided it would look much better with a dark blue metal flake paint job, a black interior. and blue shag carpeting. Then she tossed all the original dash and door knobs and replaced the steering wheel with ones made from wood. It seems like the last thing you'd want to do now but 35 years ago this was simply a used car and she modernized it so that it was a cool ride for the time.

If I had bought this car 10 years ago I probably would have stripped it and had it repainted - original cars have really come into vogue recently. It's about time, huh?

Tue Apr 19, 2011 1:55 pm

Sorry for the sideways pic. I finished taking down the after market paint on the nose. I am really pleased with the results. I will be grinding down some of the surface rust damage and spot painting it with spray paint.

Wed Apr 20, 2011 8:58 pm

For those with experience with oven cleaner...once you have removed some paint but not all of it comes off at first....how much do I have to worry about the oven cleaner burning through the original paint (i.e. do you respray it and let it sit for a bit again or is there something else you can use?

Mon May 02, 2011 6:43 am

I found this thread last week and thought I would give it a shot on my old van. The OG paint was really....REALLY oxidized from years of not being washed by the PO. I started off with goof off and that worked pretty good but when I ran out I switched to acetone. That worked much better! After it got a good rub down with the acetone I hit it with some polishing compound then with the buffer. I was planning on a repaint but I can live with this and don't mind saving the money! What surprised me the most was that the paint that had faded to pink went back to the OG color pretty quick.

Mon May 09, 2011 1:09 pm

my rear

Mon May 09, 2011 1:52 pm

moogie32 wrote:
The stripper I used did not strip the paint down to bare metal in those spots - The previous owner(s) did! My process was to spray the dark blue, remove it which exposed a second coat of non original paint - a dark aqua - and then apply yet another application of the peeler to get down to Pacific Blue. I never took any paint off I didn't intend on removing.

Great results on that Ghia! I just ordered some of the paint peeler (couldn't find it locally). What was your process like? How long did you leave the peeler on the surface?

Getting ready to do this on my 69 bug; it only has 1 repaint over the original Toga White. I'm hoping the original paint is serviceable under the cheap aftermarket paint.

Nick

Wed May 18, 2011 7:52 pm

Mooosman wrote: moogie32 wrote:
The stripper I used did not strip the paint down to bare metal in those spots - The previous owner(s) did! My process was to spray the dark blue, remove it which exposed a second coat of non original paint - a dark aqua - and then apply yet another application of the peeler to get down to Pacific Blue. I never took any paint off I didn't intend on removing.

Great results on that Ghia! I just ordered some of the paint peeler (couldn't find it locally). What was your process like? How long did you leave the peeler on the surface?

Getting ready to do this on my 69 bug; it only has 1 repaint over the original Toga White. I'm hoping the original paint is serviceable under the cheap aftermarket paint.

Nick Hi Nick,
Thanks for the compliment! Since I had 2 layers of paint I wasn't worried about burning through both coats at once, so I would leave it on until the top coat blistered and then I would hit it with steel wool. I am guessing this took about 3 - 4 minutes. I was more cautious once I approached the original paint and probably ended up wasting more of the peeler than I should have because I would remove it too soon and have to apply more. My suggestion would be to try to remove paint in an area not easily seen just to get used to the process- when in doubt, remove it. It's a great product, though, and very user friendly. Good luck and post pictures!
Diane

Sun May 29, 2011 8:40 pm

Ok I've read through most of this thread and thought I'd share my experience.
Brake cleaner, hard plastic scraper, shop towels and scotch brite works wonders on rattle can (and the respray on mine).
I use the blue (non abrasive) scotch brite when I've got it close to the og paint. It doesn't leave any scratches that I can tell and the brake cleaner doesn't do any damage to the og paint.
Rubbing compound on the blue scoth pads works really well for buffing out light scratches too.

I'm not doing it for the sake of og paint (L 87 pearlwhite) but to have a good idea of what's gonna need repair and to have a nice base for when I eventually do respray.

I'd like to post some pix but cand find a decent host site or upload to the gallery from my iPhone. Any ideas?

Sun May 29, 2011 10:38 pm

Started stripping the horrible aftermarket paint off of my 69 a couple weeks ago, and here are the results so far. It is slow going, but it seems to be worth it. I'm trying to do just one panel at a time. Eventually, the whole thing will be done, but right now I can only put in a couple hours at a time. I am using the Aircraft Paint Peeler, made by Klean Strip. It comes in a blue can, with a green box on the front of the label that reads 'peeler'. I ordered my first 2 cans online, but I have now found an automotive paint supplier here in Vegas that carries this stuff in stock. Cost per can is about $11. I am using the product with #2 steel wool for removing most of it, then finishing with #00 steel wool.

Here's the rear valence engine surround. As you can see, I found Bondo where a previous fender bender was repaired. The damage seems to be pretty light, though, and confined to just the apron.

Passenger rear fender. The peeler ended up cutting through the original paint in a couple of thin spots on the top of the fender. You just have to be careful with the peeler the closer you get to the original paint!

Rear 1/4 panel. I'm getting the hang of it now. A lot fewer bare metal spots, and I'm using less peeler for the area.

So far, 2 cans have done: passenger 1/4 panel, complete passenger rear fender, complete rear valence and seal lip, and 1/2 of the driver's rear fender. I'm guessing it's going to take 5-6 more cans to do the rest of the car, depending how thick the aftermarket paint is. I'm can't wait til it's done; I want to see what that Toga White looks like when it's shined up!

Nick

Mon May 30, 2011 9:19 am

tried this on my 65 ... graffitti remover didnt budge the paint, and due to runs etc its OBVIOUSLY rattle can

anything else you guys/gals can recomend?

id LOVE to get down to my stock paint!

Wed Jun 01, 2011 4:19 am

Looking good Nick! I waited until my Ghia was totally stripped and spot painted before I started the final stages of compounding and polishing - it was something to really look forward to and keep me motivated - keep up the great work. Todd, try the peeler that Nick is using - it works real well and will take off anything covering your original paint.

Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:03 pm

moogie32 wrote: Looking good Nick! I waited until my Ghia was totally stripped and spot painted before I started the final stages of compounding and polishing - it was something to really look forward to and keep me motivated - keep up the great work. Todd, try the peeler that Nick is using - it works real well and will take off anything covering your original paint.

Thanks. I do have a couple more questions, if you don't mind:

-Did you just have the paint place mix your touchup paint to the paint code, or match it to the car itself? Was there a difference between your touchup and the original paint, as far as fading goes?

-Do you have any tips on how you blended in the touched-up areas?

-Lastly, what kind of process/products did you use to polish/buff the paint once you had touched-up and wet sanded the car?

I've now finished both rear fenders and both quarter panels, and I've moved onto the roof, starting at the decklid and working my way forward. I don't know when I'll finish stripping it, but I'm trying to put in a couple hours' worth of sanding every evening. :?

Nick

Wed Jun 01, 2011 5:05 pm

-Did you just have the paint place mix your touchup paint to the paint code, or match it to the car itself? Was there a difference between your touchup and the original paint, as far as fading goes?

-Do you have any tips on how you blended in the touched-up areas?

-Lastly, what kind of process/products did you use to polish/buff the paint once you had touched-up and wet sanded the car?

Glad to answer your questions, Nick.
The touch up paint was mixed as close as possible to what the exterior of the glove box was. At the time I was working only on the interior and wanted something which would match that area and the mix was dead-on. I tried a little of it on the outside of the car and it turned out to be very close - maybe a little darker if you look at it in the sunlight but good enough for me. Fading didn't seem to matter once the original paint was wet sanded - the original shade seemed to come back once the oxidized top layer came off.

As far as blending the original paint into the new - that was a trial and error and my results were not always perfect- I tried to spray as little as I could overlapping the edges. I applied as light a coat as I could and then repeated that at least 3 more times to build up a layer of new paint which would stand up to wet sanding. I let the paint dry over night and then attacked it the next day - it was much easier to smooth out and blend in before it had really cured dry. Depending on orange peel issues I'd usually start with a 1200 or 1500 grit paper and go slowly - fresh paint will disappear quickly if you are too aggressive with it. Once it looked and felt smooth I would carefully wet sand the new and original paint with 2000 grit paper, then would very carefully compound and polish original and new paint using a variable speed polisher. I used 3M products for this part - I can't remember the exact product names right now, but I think I mentioned them on the page before this - if not I'll add them to another post. I filled in small chips by paint brush.

Work on one spot at a time until you're happy with the results. One real issue I encountered was rubbing through the original paint down to the primed layer and that did happen in several high spots. I could have touched up those areas but decided to leave them because it gave the car more patina.

I had my Ghia out last week and a guy came up to me and remarked how much he liked it - he said he had a '64 bug which was being restored and that although the paint looked like new on it he preferred the original look of my Ghia better... He couldn't have given me a better compliment!

Your idea of doing a little every night is a good one - you won't burn out that way. It's so cool to see your car return to it's former beauty, even if it's far from perfect. Take lots of pictures too and let us know how you're progressing!
Diane

Sat Jun 04, 2011 10:49 am

Slowly but surely.

Sat Jun 04, 2011 12:56 pm

Wet sanded (2000 grit) and waxed a small section just to get an idea of how it'll look.
Anyone tried rattlecan clear over bare metal? I have a few spots I'd like to keep from rusting.

Fri Jun 17, 2011 10:42 pm

touchdowntodd- i am in the process of removing a respray on mine, and i also used graffiti remover and it didnt even start to take the paint off, i got some jasco premium paint and epoxy stripper, you have to experiment with it cause if you leave it on too long it will take off the OG paint also, i put it on and let it sit for 3-5 minutes and then use a rag and the color comes off and then i take the primer off with some laquer thinner. you will want to experiment with the wait time because you dont want to lose the OG here is a picture right after i started

Sat Jun 18, 2011 6:32 am

thanks for the heads up!

i still want to get to this!!!!

Sat Jun 18, 2011 4:54 pm

yeah it is a very good product and i am still using it on my bug

Wed Jun 22, 2011 3:06 pm

Here are a few updates. I am going to do a little more this afternoon.

I'm using motsenbocker paint remover, mostly plastic scrapers and when needed 0000 steel wool.

Thu Jun 23, 2011 11:08 am

So I've got the roof mostly done and started on the rear corner. There was a ton of bondo back there for no good reason. The damage isn't that bad.
To anybody that's tried it, how well does the krylon almond match and hold up? I'm planning on wet sanding and possibly clear coating the bus when I'm done. Not gonna worry about body work till well after I've got all the running gear, interior and accessories in order.
If you look closely at the roof there's two holes where the awning was mounted, there's also holes in the bumpers for the posts. Anyone know what set up that would be?