Arg0413

I'm finally to the body work portion of my restoration, and need some guidance from the experts. Ive done my share of paint and body work in the past, but this is my first fiberglass car to tear into. Car has been re-painted , and had little pimples all over the paint is why I'm stripping it to repaint. I decided to try out the heat gun and razor blade method and managed to do my harm than good! Problem is the blade would go through and gauge into the body! Below are some pics of the mess I made:

Here's after my first go with the razor:



I did a quick clean up with the DA, and you can see the layers and where it hits the fiberglass:




So after this hack job I did regroup and try a different method: Found that plastic razor blades and a heat gun safely strip off the top finish coat without digging into the body. I then lightly hit with the DA to clean it up - seems to work but still going to take more work to find the fiberglass.



Here you can see the "pimples" I referred to under the BC/CC top coat. Looks like there as some sort of oil/solvent containment on that paint job.




So I certainly have some questions:

1. What am I doing wrong with the razor blade paint removal and why is it digging in no matter what I try?
2. There's several paint jobs here - how do I know I'm down to the fiberglass?
3. The little pimples - what measures should be taken to ensure these don't pop back up?

Any advice, guidance, or prayers you can send will be appreciated!

walleyfisher

I never tried the razor blade trick, always used paint stripper with razor blades (with the handle) (done at least (8) so far, doing a '59 this winter
Do one panel at a time (I always started at the top)


After all the paint is stripped, use a scoth bright pad and laquar reducer (cheap stuff) and "wash" all the stripper off and wipe dry with a paper towel (buy a box of garage paper towels)
After the whole car is stripped, go over the whole car with a DA sander using 320 grit (sand off ALL of the exsisting body filler on the seams) after the sripper is applied, the filler is basically junk for repainting

Arg0413

I bought the above stripper and tested it on some areas - I found it would only work if I sand down the clear coat first. Even with doing that, the results were mediocre. Are there some tricks or techniques to this?

walleyfisher

Dont have to sand down, scuff with 80 grit (or lightly 36) then lay on the stripper and let set and keep appling to keep wet when needed, takes about 15 minutes for it to really work,

the last car I did had 3 coats of paint on it and the hardest part was the laquar primer that was the first coat, that took alot of stripper and scotch bright pads to get down to the bare fiberglass

Arg0413

Some good news: got a system figured out that's working:

1) Use plastic razor blades and heat gun to easily scrape off paint without any damage
2) DA to knock down most of remaining layers
3) block down with 120

I haven't been having a lot of success with strippers but the above is working without doing any damage.

It appears this car was stripped down to glass and skim coated with bondo, and there's 2 -3 paint jobs on top of that!

Here's the fender with it stripped and knocked down with the DA




I used the block on top of the fender here with 120 to knock down the bondo and get to the fiberglass - seems to be working well





This seems to be working - it's a slow process but I'm not doing damage. Is stripper feasible with the bondo skim coat?

How should I go about getting the bondo out of all the lows? sand it out and build back up with VPA then block out?

The gouges I did with the metal razor - these aren't that deep, but should I repair with VPA or fiberglass matt/resin?

Any tips and constructive criticism you pro's can share on what I'm doing?

csherman

My advise - strip the body
There is some thing under neath that is causing the "pimples"
years past this was caused by replacement panels and the release agent
If the car was in my shop I would send to be blasted
You will be time and money ahead
If you plan to do it yourself - strip the panels to bare glass - everywhere !
You can use stripper - I dont - messy and gets everywhere
I blast ALL my bodies
But remove ALL the old paint
remove all the old filler and repairs
If you want - you can DA the car with 80 grit and strip them to bare glass
Chris
TiN Restorations
Plano IL

Arg0413

Glad to hear you're having good luck with soda blasting. Seems all the professional restorers soda blast their cars, funny that the hobbyist all run from it lol. I wish I had a local soda blaster that could come do my car, save me a TON of time!!

csherman

I blast all my cars with a fine Black Beauty then plastic
Bodies return in bare glass !!!!
Chris

Mr.K.

I recently tackled a similar project. It is messy and I had a spot outdoors where I could do it without worrying too much about the mess.
Here is what I did.

• First I sanded a few spots to figure out how many layers of paint it had and which one was closest to the fiberglass.
• Carefully DA the surfaces to remove/cut into to layers of paint until I got close to the first layer or two.
• Then I slathered a good coat of Aqua Strip on a panel or two and covered it with painter's plastic. I bought that stripper at West Marine and it claims to be safe for fiberglass.
• A few hours later I used the same razor blade tool (bought at Harbor Freight) to remove about 90% of the softened paint.
• As soon as the majority of the paint was off the panel, I used a few rough green Scotch Brite Pads and the stripper to remove the rest of the paint.
• Then I washed it over and over again with Dawn to make sure all residue was gone.

Once I did this to the entire car I was left with a truly bare fiberglass surface to work with. It had a few digs and bare strands to deal with, but after blocking it gently, it was ready for bodywork. Csherman is right...remove all of that paint!
Good Luck,
Mark

Not a spot of paint left on it.

Vette5311

I was at a high end resto shop last week. They had a car they used dry ice blast to remove original factory undercoat. The results were very impressive to say the least. I had never heard of it, don’t know if it works on paint or not, but the guy says it is very soft on impact and turns back to gas.
I am very interested as I will be stripping my 66 next year. I was going to used soda but am rethinking that.
Good luck.

leadfoot4

OP, are you able to move the car out of your garage, in it's present state? The "hot rod shows" on Motor Trend TV are frequently promoting the "Mobil Soda Blasting Service", maybe you could look into that.

Arg0413

So the big issue I've had with stripping this car is the car is covered in feather fill and body filler. I'm in the process of replacing the quarters currently then I'll be back to finishing the stripping. I could roll it outside, but I have so little left to remove it's not worth paying someone. I'm able to easily remove the majority of paint with a heat gun and plastic razor blades then hand block the rest off to get the body right. Will soda blasting remove body filler?

mapman

FWIW: Razor blades and HAIR DRYER.

Heat gun is way too hot and leads to gouges you encountered.

Too little heat and paint "shatters". Right amount of heat and paint comes off like skin on an apple with a sharp knife.

Wife stripped two layers of paint off my 1980 with basically no gouges.

Having to use paint stripper on the original lacquer paint. Original lacquer is more of a PITA than those two repaints were.

Remember, hair dryer not heat gun.

Mapman

Arg0413

Yes I learned the hard way about the heat gun!!! Fortunately, most of the damage I did was on the quarter that I'm replacing. The car being covered in featherfill and body filler makes it very challenging to razor strip because it digs in. I wish I would of had it soda blasted in the beginning! If I could find an experienced blaster locally I would consider it to finish the job.

Vette5311

Eastwood makes a small portable blaster you can put down a tarp and use it on the driveway. I am tempted to try it out.

Arg0413

I've been tempted to get one! My compressor is only 10CFM at 90PSI, so it's at the edge of being able to handle it.

kabuelich

Soda blasting ? Cant find anyone near me that does plastic media blasting anymore.

Vette5311

I have not used it, but read that it can leave behind a residue that can affect the paint if not removed properly.

leadfoot4

I heard something similar.....

kabuelich

I always used water soluble aircraft stripper so it could be neutralized. U would scrape off the first coat with body filler squeegees then scrub off the second coat with chore Boy copper scouring pads then finish with a 180 grit wet sand. This was back when stripper still had methyline chloride in it. If you didnt let it sit forever it would not hurt the fiberglass. Had a reseller that would drop off a vette with 2 gallons of stripper and give me $150. It usually took me a day and a half. Not bad money for a college kid when minimum wage was $1.85 !