So Im about ready to get all the old paint off my car and I was thinking of using chemical stripper. Whats the best stuff? Ive heard aircraft stripper, but I live in Cali-stinkin-fornia, so nothing is legal. Any suggestions on where to pick up something that works on LA or orange county?

Find out what kind of paste strippers are available to furniture restorers.... there is likely a local restorer that manufactures their own brand.

AC stripper rocks.


M

Matt

First make sure you really need to strip. Lots of old paint layers, cracked paint, etc. then sometimes stripping is the way to go. But otherwise just sanding down to a good solid base is all you need to do. Then do your filler, prime, block sanding, guide coat, etc. before base coat. The other thing is stripper will soften body fillers so you can create a lot of extra work if you get into old repairs, or even some of the factory filler.

But, if you really need to strip, you need the good meth-chloride stuff like aircraft stripper or from Home Depot. If that's banned there then I don't know what a good alternative is.

Aircraft brand is the best I have found for car paint, some furnature stripper do not touch car paint, and I have found that my old favorite must have a different formulation now, and no longer works well, adn that was jasco brand.

if you can get Aircraft brand, it works, however DANGER. use glasses, use rubber gloves, do it outside in the wind! It will eat thru many brands of gloves, get thick ones. It will blind you, it actually burns the skin on contact, and if you tough out the bruning rahter than cold water wash, it will leave blisters that hurt, no shit, powerful stuff, it works.

talk with some body experts before stripping major portions of a car with stripper. there are some pitfalls with stripper, like nuetralization, keeping it out of seams, etc... So check into the technique. i personally would not want to strip a car without understanding all the issues, and the dangers.
for small parts that are removed, and in some applications total cars stripper is good, but it can be a painters nightmare if not done correctly.

good luck

Those are some good tips. I'll talk to the body guy some more and see what he thinks I should do. Thanks!!!

Here are some more tips if you strip. Don't do it in the direct sun, do the work in the shade if you can. Warm day is good, like 70 deg or warmer. Brush on a good thick coat and watch it for a bit, then when it starts to look dry brush on some more. You can put some plastic over it to keep it from drying out. If the paint is polyurethane clearcoat it will take a while but eventually will start wrinkling, you can even hear it cracking and popping. Give it time, then it will get to the point where you can take a wide scraper or putty knife and scrape it off. Do this where you can make a mess, not over a nice garage floor you don't want messed up. Now, the first pass you'll find you'll have removed just the clearcoat (assuming BC/CC old paint job). Now you have to repeat the process all over again to take off the base coat layer. Enough times you'll start seeing the underlying primer-surfacer (may be gray) or factory self-etch primer (may be red). Depending on how many paint layers it might take awhile to get down to bare metal. You may see plastic filler (Bondo). This will soften up and if thin will come off. If thick, you can scrape the remover off and leave it to sand later, or you can use a heat gun to take the filler out down to bare metal. Once you wash off all the paint remover residue you will have to wipe it down with lacquer thinner, then let it dry and then hit the bare metal with a DA sander. You don't want the remover getting into seams or places like the under-hood braces. If it does, then get a power washer and blast plenty of water into all the cracks and seams (dry or blow it off so it doesn't rust). It can take a couple gallons of stripper to do a whole 914, and a lot of time. You'll get a pile of old paint too.

Some more tips:

1. if you're stripping lots of coats of paint off, then take a utility knife and scratch the top layer. The goal is to give the stripper a faster way to get "down" to the metal base.

2. also, once you put the stripper down on the surface, don't mess with it. Brush in one direction, and let it be. Then, cover it with Saran Wrap. That will prevent the stripper from drying out, and will force the active chemicals to work down towards the metal base. With this method, I cut my consumption of the chemical by 75%.

-Rusty

Go to Pomona or Long Beach swap meet. They sell the good stuff. LB is the 2nd Sun of every month. There is no Porsche or VW stuff at LB, but all the paint, POR 15 and stripper you'll ever need, plus other bodywork supplies.