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

Sun Oct 20, 2013 9:38 am

Quote: Anyone..... As far as strength of all the stuff being used, what would be considered the mildest? Acetone, oven cleaner, graffiti remover? in that order

Most aggressive would be the gel stripper - used with a metal scraper/ razor blade
then EZ off heavy duty oven cleaner - used with a metal scraper/ razor blade
then generic reular oven cleaner with scrubbie
next would be the graffiti remover or acetone sprayed and scrubbed with 0000 wool
mildest would be Acetone on a terrytowel and rubbed on.

thats What I have found. remeber that the temperature in the garage or wherever your working plays a huge role in the aggresiveness of the chemical strippers.

the gel strippers, although you can control wher you put them, are extremely messy and the scraper has a snowplow effect so the gel is thicker in lines across the panel so you have to wipe it away, being careful not to get on your fingers, then touch something you do not want stripper on. the gels will eat through OG paint if you leave it on long enough, or forget to wipe/ rinse it of in spots as well.

the Acetone/ Graffiti remover are nice because they dry/ evaporate quickly and do not leave a sludge behind... you go through many bottles of it and 0000 wool however, and thats gets expensive.

Sun Nov 10, 2013 1:40 pm

After my PGSG i said I would never do this again....

But then this bus came...

1 side is prettymuch done... atleast below the beltline...
Anuone knows the name of this colour?

Since the windowframes are the same colour I am pretty sure this was a 1 colour bus :-)

Mon Nov 25, 2013 4:53 pm

Finally got around to trying this out today after lurking for a while. About an hour of scrubbing away with the steel wool and I got some of the cheap, poorly done, white paint off from the PO.
(Mind the dirt, 'poor guy has been sitting in the garage for the past month and I haven't been bothered to push him down and give him a wash yet)

Fri Jan 10, 2014 8:56 am

Using aircraft stripper and wet sanding
( Before )

( After )

Thu Feb 13, 2014 11:58 am

Deleted

Fri Feb 14, 2014 12:59 am

Nice, love the color. Will it buff out?

Fri Feb 14, 2014 2:33 am

1967250s wrote: Nice, love the color. Will it buff out?

We polished a few areas yesterday, I will take pics and post. It turned out awesome.

We will not polish until I get the window rubber so we can pull the windows to do a correct detail.

Wed Feb 26, 2014 2:09 pm

Decided to strip the matt black off our bug from a previous owner. Underneath is brilliant orange so will be nice to get it all back to that colour! We cant get hold of easy off oven cleaner in the UK which seems to be what most people here are using so I've gone with another branded oven cleaner and fine wire wool. Bloody time consuming but will be well worth it. :D

Wed Feb 26, 2014 5:50 pm

I wouldn't worry about using E-Z off, it's usually better to use the cheapest crap you can find so it's weaker.
E-Z is pretty easy to go straight through the original paint too if you are not careful.

Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:56 pm

Just got some oven cleaner and 0000 steel wool! Gonna try this on my 63 bug! Previous owner had it painted dark purple/burgandy, og blue is underneath! I think its dove? But I chipped at random sections on the car and didn't find bondo or anything

Fri Feb 28, 2014 8:57 pm

Aftermarket paint is thin to! Really crappy paint job haha

Sat Mar 08, 2014 2:59 pm

I seem to be removing what was a decent paint job.

Mon Mar 17, 2014 4:16 pm

Stripped some more off yesterday, made a bit more progress today but forgot to take a photo. Here's how it was looking yesterday. It's really tough to get off but the paint underneath is looking great. I know its a late bug so the paint is likely to be better but hey. I don't understand why the previous owner would have wanted to paint over this lovely orange!

EDIT: Apologies for the large photo :oops:

Tue Mar 18, 2014 9:54 am

Michael72 wrote: Stripped some more off yesterday, made a bit more progress today but forgot to take a photo. Here's how it was looking yesterday. It's really tough to get off but the paint underneath is looking great. I know its a late bug so the paint is likely to be better but hey. I don't understand why the previous owner would have wanted to paint over this lovely orange!

EDIT: Apologies for the large photo :oops:

I have to be honest, I'm kind of diggin' that orange and black together! Would be a cool combo! 8)

Wed Mar 19, 2014 2:23 pm

Your not the first person to say that :lol: The black has to go though unfortunately! Not to my taste.

Tue Mar 25, 2014 4:29 pm

I have been thinking about repainting my 69 because a PO put on some nice color blue but did a bad job of it so i figure ive got nothing to lose but time by trying to get at the OG cream color paint first. im going to take a crap ton of pictures and hope to inspire more

Wed Apr 16, 2014 12:31 pm

So were still making progress on removing the aftermarket paint from our 72 bug. Found an alternative method to the wire wool and oven cleaner method as this was going to work out quite costly. I picked up a fine/medium grade sanding block from a local hardware store and it seemed to work great scrubbing with a bit of warm soapy water. So picked up some more blocks and are making some good progress now 8)

before:

current:

Sun Apr 20, 2014 5:44 pm

so from reading several pages of this awesome thread to get removing paint I would:

1.) Use a rag/towel or brush to place on Acetone? I think Acetone was predominant in this thread for doing the best job?
2.) Wait for about 5 seconds, then use steel wool to take off paint?

I thing original color is red and someone painted it a Maaco Orange. I hope it brings it back to its original Red color.

Rustednuggs

Fri Apr 25, 2014 12:29 am

We've just picked up an '81 T25 (Vanagon) that looks largely solid but has been brush painted in the past over a blue metallic respray. We're fully intending to repaint it, but I want to get back to the original paint so that I know exactly what I'm dealing with. I tried oven cleaner and it didn't touch the brush paint or the blue. I'm going to razor off the brush paint to expose the blue and try something a bit stronger on that. We can't get most of the stuff in the UK that you can in the States though.

Fri Apr 25, 2014 7:14 am

Paint Stripper only takes off 1 layer of paint on each application. Wait for it to bubble the top layer and then remove it with scrappers & coarse Steel Wool etc. Re-apply where necessary.