paint question, strip before repaint? Options

[rwilner]

So I am thinking next year maybe a respray. I'm sick of my dad giving me sh** for the small dents and dings.

My car has been resprayed at least twice, both times the factory color.

When I'm prepping for the respray, should I sand down the previous layers to bare metal or the original layer? My thought is to leave the layers...they add a little weight but protect from rust.

Thoughts?

[jimbot2000]

Be warned that taking all the paint off the car will no doubtably reveal more work that needs to be done. Rust removal, previous repairs and so on. I will beginning my restoration project very soon and have already revealed plenty of things I didn't see when I bought the car. Likewise with my Austin Healey, when I started stripping that car I found more than I knew about.

I agree that you can probably just block sand a car with the original paint, and respray it. But with two coats, I'd recommend to strip the car as well.

Another recommendation would be to have the car soda blasted. This will be gentle on the sheet metal first, and not damage the previous repairs like body filler. Then you can decide if you want to re-fix it, or leave it. Also stripping all the paint off the car is a pain in the A**. It takes a long time and is just really difficult it times. After you add up the cost of all the things you're going to try, all the materials and special tools plus your time you're only a short step away from having it soda blasted. Some times blasters will even include a little bit of rotisserie time for you after the job is done so you can get it in primer and protected from the elements again.

I'm going to be looking for such a service over here in the near future, but I'll be building my own rotisserie. I'll be able to use it in the future, but don't tell my wife!