Got multiple resto projects starting. First is my son's 72 cuda. after metal work going to go get it blasted. Well by me is newbury sand blasting. A few of my friends have used them, some like them. They blast firewall, underneath and panels. I met a guy at the piston power show. ECO blast, water based with glass. They are out of valley city. Anyone ever use this process? doing the cuda, then my lil red then my vert. wanted to hear some thoughts. Need to find a lot of restoration services, chrome interior, etc. got name of shops for work to be done please drop me an email. thx phil par12730@sbcglobal.net

I think I'd have the blasting done before metal work. It will most likely uncover more problems which may require the completed metal work to be redone.

The water based blasting is an excellent way to go, although not exactly cheap. If you choose the sand blaster, I would not let him use sand since it can easily warp the metal. I would have them use some sort of media like walnut shells.

The mobile blaster company( that blasted my car) was shut down by the government for creating " too much dust"....

Probably the future with the water added to keep down dust...

The water helps the glass do a better job at removing everything including undercoating. Stil have the same huge mess afterwards.

Dipping is the only way to go. It gets it all. Even after blasting - where the blaster can actually get - there will be minute rusty pores that are too small for blast media. This rust must be removed or converted. So you may as well do it right the first time - dip the car and get ALL the rust.

Well I've heard nightmares about dipping. If it didn't get cleaned well ,the acid ate through the paint. It's my son's car, limited budget. Dip then e coat- pretty pricey. Don't even know where one would be. They closed one out by Toledo I'm told. Was thinking more on the ECO water blast cause water helps cool and no warp age. keep the restoration tips coming. Just got home from summit with a right side quarter, trunk pan and gutters. Need more info on correct restoration. where to get services in my area. Chrome, interior etc. May try interior - installing seat covers myself.

I've used the water/glass bead method twice now and I think its great. And I don't think its any more expensive than other methods. AND, he came to my place to do it, so there was no loading, unloading repeat.

The real draw back is the stuff cakes in the nooks and crannies and is hard to get it out. But, I will do it again.

Old wives' tales perpetrated by proponents of blasting. Haven't you ever heard of blasters warping panels ?!?!

that occurs when you are brain dead stupid
and you blast the outside panels..
dipping = 2500 and up plus transportation costs
i could probably blast/strip 4-5 cars for the same money

If I had done things differently I would of had the body dipped. Exposes all sins in the body. Unlike sand and soda the dipping is neutralized and coated to eliminate flash rust.

Soda and sand can come back to haunt a painter.

But you can't convince some people of that !

And if someone says they can blast a car for $500 you should probably avoid them like the plague!

why is that??
i do it all myself
that is about what the media and stripper will cost me give or take a few.
blast the inside and underside
and chemically strip all the outside panels
the way you talk,
you are either made of money or own a dipping company..lol
its not a matter of convincing,
its a matter of economics!
for a 100k plus hemi car..sure
for your average mopar ...

Dipping is the only way to go on any car that may have hidden rust. The blaster can't get inside frame rails or any area you can't see. Dip the car and everything is cleaned. Blast it and do it over in 5 yrs when it rusts. Never enough money to do it right but enough money to do it over.

The op asked which style of blasting... I've only ever sandblasted and the only negative to me is the time it takes to get all the sand out of the rail, seams, rockers etc. It's not as bad when the car is on a rotiserrie, but still takes a lot of time. I'm working on a car now that when I removed the floors there was an inch of sand in areas from being blasted before and not cleaned correctly.

As far as dipping since it's being discussed... wouldn't do it if it was free. The less chemicals used the better.

So you're saying you can do this for a customer for $500., because that’s what we’re talking about here, the OP having it done – not doing it himself. If a guy told me he could blast a customer’s car for $500. I would be extremely concerned about what I get back.

As for the "chemical" and "acid" comments, its really evident that you guys are just listening to the old wive's tales and have done ZERO research on the topic.

And no, I don't own a stripping company !!

I have dipped several cars and there are issues with dipping. I had a hood that would not take paint afterwards, that company was in business for 40 years. It all depends on how often they change the solvent in the dipping tanks and how much the employees care about their work. A buddy used the same dipper and they forgot about his doors they had in the tank and put a body on top of them! When they finally realized their mistake he got two smashed and nearly gone doors because they were in the solution too long. The last dipper in area is a Redi Strip facility and they are very expensive and booked solid for months out... I had a floor stripped by a company that used Black Beauty, too bad they didn't mask off the new headliner, what a mess! Had to replace the headliner and am still removing left over residue from the blasting months later.

There are a number of ways to do this. Much of it depends on how deep your pockets are and how much work you want to put in. For the low buck route...Several gallons of aircraft paint stripper, a box of razor blades and a razor blade scraping knife works for large flat panels. The same paint stripper, a wire brush and Scotch Brite pads work on the irregular surfaces. Might need to add a heat gun or propane torch for the under coating removal.

For the smaller hard to reach areas, corners, etc, get a cheap suction feed blaster from Harbor Freight. Inside the frame areas, tape off the drain holes and pour a bit of Evapo-Rust inside to help take care of that. The rust transformer stuff also works well for those inside hidden areas.

Bad rust as always should be cut out and replaced. However don't fall into the trap of replacing entire panels because of one small bad area. Weld the patch in place and save what you can of the original metal.

"Much of it depends on how deep your pockets are" . This is a 22 year old young mans car. My son is in his senior year of college. He's carrying 18 credits, has 3 jobs working for the college for money. Not that I want him to do it wrong or nor does he, but money isn't falling out of his pockets. glad he's into muscle cars and not other stuff. We still have to install trunk pan and passenger quarter then paint..Then figure out money for motor, find a 4 speed. (original 3 speed 340 car) , interior etc. will probably go with water/glass blasting. but I like info ,I have a 2 lil reds to do and my R/T convertible.

i blast for a living. i own a wet blaster, a dry blaster and a vapor blaster,. i blast soda, walnut, aluminum oxide, garnet, glass bead and 5 sizes of glass.

my opinion is based on real work, not something i read on the internet from "a guy who knows a guy who... posts his opinion on moparts" i work on big money cars everyday and have my preference is dry blasting.

first off. have the blaster show you their work (i have 2600 photos on my phone of work i have done for others) have them give you references on work they have done in the past. if they specialize in heavy equipment and "might be able" to do your car, run away. you want a sheetmetal blaster.

wet blasting is NO different than dry blasting other than its wet and messy. you can still warp. if you fall for the cooling metal BS, its just hype. most dustless blasters (green blast pot) have little experience blasting and no training from mmlj so be careful and do your homework on whats involved after blasting.

the only wet blasting i do other than concrete and rock is sail boats. no sheetmetal at all. I would never fill a car with wet product. too hard to remove and you have a short time to remove it even with holdtight in the water.

media size. ask them about it as well. i blast 100-200 grit glass on sheetmetal. it leaves little to no profile (1-2mil) floors, inners ect i use 50-100 grit glass. anything coarser in my opinion is too rough.

everybody has their own opinion on blasting/stripping and thats good. i know what works for me and have lots of happy customers to show for it.

this is a picture from a fellow blaster who took the picture. i know the full story behind it and the picture was not found on the internet. this camaro is a fresh 10.5 car that just had the cage done and the customer wanted the car blasted. new blaster wet blasted it and this is the results. the doors were full of wet media and all the panels are ruined. i think this one will be a lawsuit.
i am not biased to one type of blasting, so this isnt hacking wet blasting, mmlj is the green guys advertising on the tv car shows. they used to be called sodablast systems and made a horrible media hog product. they added water to the system and started dustless blasting. same crappy machines, just hype.

Proponents of chemical stripping seem to always tout that rust and paint will be removed from all the hidden areas that abrasive blasting wouldn't get to. My question has always been, okay, you've taken all the paint from the inaccessible areas, how do you now get to these areas and coat them with at least primer?

Well if the area is in accessible chances are there was never any paint there and why rust exists !!

The thing is, rust never sleeps. By getting rid of it in those areas you now have the opportunity to do something to lessen the chance of it coming back. That can be as simple as spraying the insides of frame rails, etc with WD40 or buying and using a product like Eastwood's "rust encapsulator" which comes with a long tube and spray nozzle to access those areas. And chances are the finished car isn't going to see rain, puddles or snow in the rest of its days - thus minimizing rapid progression of any flash rust that does happen to form.

Its like having a cancerous tumor removed, you don't say "that's it" and go home, you get tested to make sure they got it all and then you take steps to make sure it doesn't come back.

I'm just going on the sales literature for my 1967 GTX that stated the bodies were dipped in primer for 18" from the bottom of the body. I would think that would prime areas that were inaccessible, especially in the quarters and sills.

Correct, that was the whole intention of dipping, to coat everything inaccessible, the only reason for floor/frame and body holes/plugs as well

I'll stick to sand blasting, as I've seen too many cases of chemical stripping/dipping come back to bite you in the final paint, as far as blasting inaccessible areas, I'll do my best to get into every nook and cranny, if I'm doing a floor or trunk or any other area that opens up frame rails or caverns, I'll blast with that component removed to access those areas, then later a primer acid etchant, epoxy primer sealer or other rust preventive measure to coat inside frame rails or other caverns that will be sealed over with body panels, caps, flooring, etc, etc

Do you ever use plastic? Urea plastic to blast paint off outer body panels?

Well it obviously wasn't that great of a dip as evidenced by the number of cars needing floors, quarters, trunks, trunk extensions and frame rails!!!

Well after you did then it's supposed to be E coated. That's supposed to fill all void etc. pricey to dip and E coat. Think I will blast either dry or wet. Will check out all my options. don't mind using a chemical strip for the panels. learning more as I read the pros and cons

I was incorrect, it was only 15", not 18".

If the car was on a rotisserie you could put some over reduced epoxy primer in a squirt or spray bottle and use it to get primer into places where the sun doesn't shine. The bottoms of these cars were full of runs and drips from the oem dip process so recreating those runs would be more authentic than just spraying it with a gun.

Some places you won't be able to reach, but as long as you have primer around the places where the water might get in that would be better than nothing.

The hoods on these cars only have primer overspray dust underneath the bracing. If you turn the hood upside down you can pour watered down primer on the bottom and have a helper help you tilt the hood around to get primer back up where no paint gun can reach. Once it's dried you can feather out any runs and keep going.