Posted by Sid on Monday, April 04, 2005 at 9:14AM :
In Reply to: Faster paint prep ? posted by Jim Chance on Sunday, April 03, 2005 at 12:08PM :
I have had good luck using Lye (Caustic Soda) to remove paint. Not sure why you do not like it. After the paint is off I use inhibited muriatic acid. The inhibitor is available from Miller products in Philadelphia. Using this inhibitor you can put the smallest of parts into the solution. The acid removes the rust and the inhibitor prevents any action on the clean steel. Then, I put the parts into a solution of Caustic Soda again to kill the acid. Then I use Phosphoric acid as a final prep. This works very well as the Phosphoric converts any remaining Iron Oxide (rust) to Iron Phosphate which is stable. I use this method on anything I can get into a reasonably sized tub or bucket.
I do not recommend sandblasting any cab metal since the danger of warping it is too great. I have warped metal on my own restorations and do not use sandblasting on sheet metal. OK on the frame etc. I am doing a Power Wagon now and plan to take the cab and bed to a shop and have it dipped. This gets all the rust. I just have to be very careful to get the dipping solutions out of all the little crevices and then shoot metal prep into them and then good primer. The old PW should last another 50 years easy. Sid