I have a 70 shell that I will be doing a color change on. It has been recommended that I have the outer surfaces (fenders, doors, rear quarter panels and hoods) be hand stripped to maintain the surface substrates.

I would like to have the rest of the car media blasted to remove the paint. There are many thoughts/threads on this topic.

I am in the PNW (Portland). If you have had experience with media blasting your car/parts I would be interested in hearing your experience with vendors and media types used.

Thanks,

Greg

Whatever you do Greg, don't get it dipped. Hand chem stripping is effective, and when done right, probably the least invasive. I tape off the edges and seams so the paint stripper doesn't get where I don't want it to go.

That said, I'd probably look for a shop that does soda blasting, then have the metal acid etched and epoxy primered

Ive done a few cars now. Both Plastic/Sand & soda. The Soda wont touch rust or seam sealer. The plastic/sand will rid the chassis of the rust but you will STILL have to manually remove the sealer or run the risk of rust coming back from beneath those areas.
The sand has the benefit of exposing areas the will become to thin to retain.
The plastic is for the large surface areas as it doesn't heat the panels that can cause warpage.
Cost wise on a 914 where ALL the areas are affected it been a year or since last but was about $1500 for full car either process

We have a blast company about 90 minutes away. We get it done with plastic media. If plastic gets in the cracks, it won't absorb moisture and doesn't need to be neutralized like soda. It won't remove rust, I think they use garnet for the rusty parts and it won't take off tar or undercoating. Cost $900-1,200 depending on the car.

For high end builds, we send it down south to get dipped. they neutralize it and send it back. we do metalwork and then send it back down for e-coat. We once had it e-coated right after dipping but then we still had to do rust repair.

There is no perfect method.

Mark how much does a dip/neutralize then E-coat cost?

In hindsight, I should have added in my initial post that the car has already been repaired to remove 98% of the rust. There may be a spot of surface rust here and there.

If I went the dip and then e-coat route, I would need to remove the paper air tubes from the inner rockers beforehand. If true then I would need to open the outer rockers when there is no real need to (although it would be nice to know there is NO rust anywhere).

What about dipping and e-coating the hoods, door, rockers, and valences and having them e-coated and plastic media blast the shell?

https://metaldipping.com/

About $5k

I have a local guy that is reasonable. You can see what he did for me here -

http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...y+with+stripper

he is mobile, so can come to you, or take to the coast in Tillamook.

That's where the black car will be going.

He can do spot, or the whole thing.

Used him on Taylor's car also -
http://www.914world.com/bbs2/index.php?sho...;hl=taylors+wes

When you're done you can use an acid etch primer to seal. He uses an iron phosphate so it will not flash rust, but if you leave it in a high moisture environment it will start to.

Note on sand. Have all holes (no matter how small - like sheet metal screw holes) plugged robustly before any blasting starts. Put screws back in the screw holes, plug the longitudinal holes, etc.

Otherwise you'll be getting sand out from random places for the next 10 years.

Ask me how I know this. I did my 1st car myself and learned at the school of hard knocks.

As pointed out with soda, sand will also hold moisture and promote rust.

Currently working on a previous Florida car. Same deal. Sand in Longs, sand in front rails below the gas tank. Sand in the tunnel. All these areas are shot from that sand which was also potentially salty beach sand.