Stripping lacquer paint.

[Milsteads Garage]

Im in the middle of painting my car and I can assure you, this is no easy task. First, I will start off by telling you how old lacquer paint worked. Lacquer paint is one of the strangest compositions of chemicals I have dealt with. As you apply coats, it will react and bond with the coat underneath. It used to take around a week for the paint to stop reacting and then you could buff. Lacquer reacts very well to buffing. The more you polish, the shinier it would get. Here are the bad parts of a lacquer paint job. Lacquers do not like heat. They are very much known to expand and contract. Too many years of this in a hot climate, it cracks and falls off. If you are in this position and not wanting to pay the money for what shops command for, this means you now have to deal with removing it yourself. If you skip this step which means a scuff and repaint in modern materials, it will react, get gooey and your new paint job is basically tar. So back to removing paint yourself. I will first tell you what DOES NOT work. Paint stripper. Its basically useless on Lacquer. Lacquer laughs at paint stripper, specifically Aircraft brand paint stripper which is supposed to be the best. It’s a huge waste of money. On my car which has been lacquer painted 5 times, it barely managed to remove 2 coats. It does absolutely nothing on a factory finish. Sandblasting is no good either because it creates heat. Lacquer becomes soft and pliable with heat. You will end up with a far worse finish from the grit being imbedded into the paint not to mention any sheet metal warping from the heat and pressure from spraying sandblasting media. Soda blasting is even more useless and messier of a way. The only way Ive found to remove lacquer is to buy 3 supplies. 1) a multi speed 8 inch buffer/sander. I bought mine at harbor freight 12 years ago and it has been used on 30 vehicles. Dont even remember what I paid for it, $39.99 maybe? Next, an 8 inch sanding pad and media discs. I use a 3M hook it system. It works like Velcro. I use 40 grit or rougher. I bought both at a NAPA paint store, 27th ave and Thomas Rd in Phoenix AZ. For safety, I also use a P100 painters mask to shield my self from lead paint dust (well, sometimes). The technique to sanding is to put the machine on the slowest speed possible. The dial usually goes from 1-10, I keep it between 2-3. It takes between 2-3 discs and 30 minutes to 2 hours to strip a panel. Keep an eye on what temperature your panel is. The colder a panel is, the better it sands off. Too fast of speed or too much pressure will cause the paint to heat up which means it get tacky and gooey and will ruin your sanding pads. Lacquer is also very hard on sanding discs so if you sense progress is beginning to slow too much, change the sanding disc. I bought a box of 25 and still have some left afterward. I will also save some discs that I catch before they completely wear out and use them again to rough in body filler because its about on the same level now as an 80 grit piece of sandpaper. If you need links to the materials I use or to add a method you use that works, please add to this thread I created.

[jdsnoddy]

Morgan:
Thanks for this. What is your opinion of metal laundries like Redi-strip where they hot tank the entire chassis?

[Milsteads Garage]

Morgan:
Thanks for this. What is your opinion of metal laundries like Redi-strip where they hot tank the entire chassis?
Personally, I have never used a service like this even when I had 3756 completely blown apart. I would suspect it would save a huge amount of time I spend on sanding down a car like this and if you are building a 100 point show car it definitely has its uses. My personal thought on completely disassembling one of these cars is to not to unless you are in a position like our two historians are that have everything at their disposal to restore a car along with either a healthy parts supply, vendor services and supplies etc. Me personally, I just want to drive them and not have to worry about much. Part of my disposition is I’m a fleet mechanic. I cannot afford nor do I like having a car sitting around in pieces. I have a weak long game when it comes to projects. This means when I work, I like to have sub-assemblies ready to go which explains why I have a spare engine, 3 transmissions, 6 power steering pumps, 2 treadle vacs and just a whole plethora of parts sitting around and if it breaks, it’s a few hours for me to change it and put it back out on the road. Concerning paint and finishes, I want it to look good going down the road, so I’m looking for the one point where value, looks, and time all intersect.

[David Smart]

After going through the paint stripper drill and grit blasting and several other attempts, I found success using my 4 1/2" grinder initially with Home Depot sourced discs that look like they have a hardened scotchbright pad surface. After using up about 10 of those I went with 80 grit flapper discs on my grinder. Go slow and easy as not to heat up the metal too much and warping it. Even with a couple of coats of paint in place, I got the car down to bare metal without too much of a mess that way. I took about 60 hours total to achieve a complete bare metal surface. The discs were about $10 each and the flapper discs were cheap at Harbor Freight. Just be careful around stainless and chrome trim. I masked them off.

Dave Smart
C5S3765

[Rickv]

Morgan , I've been painting for 43 years and have been using your method for ever . I found it's the best way for sure . You might try wire brushing your disks if they get loaded up it helps . My contenential had pretty thick paint on it and I used a razor blade scraper whenever possible . Cheaper and no dust ! Have fun !! Lol

[GAT]

Rickv You removed all your paint with a razor? It didn't dig in? Please explain , I'm getting ready to do mine.

[Milsteads Garage]

32212Here the car is after I painted it

[Rickv]

Hey Gary, find a place on your car with chips . Thats your starting point push the blade and it should start scraping . I finished most of my deck lid tonight with a blade. Change blades often and if you even rotate the scraper and use the opposite side , its almost like a new blade . I get a box of blades for 10 bucks and a scraper for about 5 bucks .You should be able to get a good portin off with this method ,and you won't be sucking dust ! I usually use a 6 inch da sander or my 8 inch da to get the hard to get areas . You can also sand by hand to open the paint up before ya scrape .I've done this anytime I'm doing an old car ,it works for me . Good luck on your project !

[Milsteads Garage]

32214
Just got my bumpers rechromed too. Paint is almost 3 years old, it’s holding up pretty good. I’ve been following your work on Facebook Rick, good work!