Getting closer

Today I'll just post a few pictures of the current status of the car, and then a note on stripping. Paint. Stripping paint. (What kind of blog do you think this is?) I want to try to cover questions that I had before I started and put in my two cents about what I've found.

First the pictures. If you click on the pictures, you can see a larger one. If you look closely at the first one, you'll see some waviness along the center ridge where the trim attaches. I worked SO much on this panel and still didn't manage to get that line completely straight. I may have to go for outside help...

A closer look at the rust that has to be cut out and replaced:

What I did today:

What's left to strip:

Now a few words about how I've been stripping paint. Before I started, I researched quite a bit. I decided on using aircraft stripper because sanding and or grinding seemed like it would take too long. I looked into soda blasting, and Eastwood sells a unit for around $250, which is addition to your compressor. I didn't want to spend that extra money, so I bought some aircraft stripper. I actually did the whole replacement decklid that way. It takes several applications and is messy. Not to mention, you DO NOT want to get any on your skin. You'll feel it within seconds! Also, it's around $25-$30 per gallon. I think I used close to a half gallon just on the trunk. It would've gotten expensive. I really don't recommend it.

During a trip to Home Depot, I was looking at power tools and ended up getting a Ryobi 4.5 inch angle grinder that came with a sanding disk, a grinding disk, and a stripping disk, all for $39. Not too bad. I think it's a 11,000 RPM one. I tried the stripping disk on the paint and never looked back. Works quite well, and probably about as fast as a home soda blasting kit, although not as friendly to aluminum trim pieces, so be careful! The replacement disks are about $8 or $9, and I think I'll end up using around 6 of them. I've used some aircraft stripper to get into small places that I couldn't get to with the disk and it's very messy. Not to mention you don't want any hanging around only bubble up through your nice new paint later on. That stuff is powerful.

In spite of its relative effectiveness, it still takes a bit of work to do a whole panel with a stripping disk. And it gets paint and metal dust all over you. Here's how I gear up for a stripping session:

So, here are the grinder attachments I've been using. The DeWalt wire wheel on the left has been good for tighter spaces. It's actually quite heavy wire which doesn't work as well because you've got to apply more pressure to get all of the bristles to contact well, which can't be good for the sheet metal. The stripping disk I've been using is made by Norton, pictured on the right.

Regular flat shaped wire wheels also work very well on paint, and are particularly effective on surface rust. The stripping disc doesn't really remove rust as well, but it will some. Here's the remnant of the one that came with my grinder:

I'm glad I kept it because it came in handy today. Since it's so small, I'm able to get it into creases that nothing else would touch. They look like this when new:

I haven't been able to find a new one that has a center hole big enough to fit my grinder. There are ones that will fit a drill, which will work in a pinch, but drills just don't have the RPMs to be very effective. At least mine doesn't. Plus the battery runs out in about 5 minutes!

Well, I think I've more or less covered it. Hope this helps someone out there!