First Generation Firebird-L Mailing List ......................................................................... Your story is an example why one should not farm out media blasting to anyone. I started with really rotted stuff for practice like a battery tray that wouldn't be saved and was reproduced. . I discovered that it's easy to keep blasting at rust when it ate through much of the panel. It is like taking millions of small body hammers and beating hell out of your car. The most you can to with blasting is to remove surface rust that will cause paint failure. If it needs more than that, metal needs to be cut out and replaced. I have read many heart breaking stories about sandblasting or media blasting ruining panel straightness. Potentially expensive and restorable cars have been ruined, many of them more valuable than a Firebird or Camaro. I have read even more discouraging stories about finishing a car that was soda blasted and having the car for a year or three under final paint. Then the soda, which is chemically active in various nooks and cranies is still in their causing failure. I would not touch soda blasting with a ten foot pole. It is bad enough to get media out of the project. It is much smarter to chemically strip the car, then run a d/a sander and as a last step, and if necessary, give it glancing cleanup with a sandblaster you run at home. A sand blasted panel cleaned up from OEM primer and paint will be stretched from the equivlalent of hammer on dolly beating. This can be corrected with a shrinking disc if it is not too badly damaged. My advice is don't abuse the panels like this in the first place. The s message is the guy who blasts tractors and farm parts should not be any where near your classic bird. If you have media blasting done, it has to be done by the same guy who has turned out winning results on expensive cars. I am convinced the first step is chemical removal of the finish so the metal is not abuse more than necessary.. Larry
--- On Wed, 7/23/08, S Sterchi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: From: S Sterchi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: [FGF] Soda blasting To: "First Generation Firebird-L" <[email protected]> Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2008, 1:26 AM First Generation Firebird-L Mailing List ......................................................................... I stripped the body of my car with aircraft followed by DA myself. Major committment of time and messy as hell. I did all the body work and primed it before sending to the sandblaster for the undercarriage and inside the cab (no front clip or subframe), $500. Make sure you tell them to NOT even go near the inside of the roof. You need to do this without generating any heat. I spent a couple weeks smoothing out my roof w/high build primer (provided pics to the list as I was going through that panic week of hell thinking I might have to go convertible, lol). Sheen> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Submissions to Firebird-L: <[email protected]> Unsubscribe from Firebird-L: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Help: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/firebird/Firebird-L.html> Classifieds: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/ubb/> Owner Pictures: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/show/> Donations: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/store/cart.mv?999999> FGF Merchandise: <http://FirstGenFirebird.org/store>
