Stripping Paint

Time to focus on the paint

Now that the mechanics seem to be in reasonable shape and the rains have started, it is a great time to get the body in order.  First step, strip off the paint.  Now there are many opinions on the best way to do this from chemical to sanding to wire brushes.  Not having a lot of space for chemical strip, I tried both the 3M paint strippers in an angle-grinder and 60-Grit sand painter on a orbital sander.  Both work well but progress is slow.

Best I can tell, there are at least 4-6 different paint jobs of paint the car.  Yellow, Green, Red, Green, Grey, Blue, White.  Here is a geological photo of an sanded area.  The bare steel looks great but it takes a lot of work to get down through 40 years of paint.

Then I read about using a razor blade to strip paint.  It works.   here is a video showing the stripping a a couple of layers.  The razor avoids lots of dust and chemical mess.  It  takes a lot of razors as each one lasts for about a square foot of scraping, but at $7.00/100, it is still quite economical.

At this point, about 70% of the metal is scraped but the detail work is still pending.  Several more weekends to go....