optimus priming

schnackenberg said

Ok,
I haven't done much painting with cars and thought I would give it a shot and would like to see what people think or if they have any good recommendations.

I have a 1970 duster I have stripped down to nothing, no trim, windows, notta...

While I have it apart this far I want to do what I can to prime and paint it as best as i can. I can do all the finishing work after I have an engine in it I just want to get the car protected from the elements right now.

I was thinking of blasting but have heard it can damage panels, I have an air powered DA sander but work seems slow. How should I prep this car for priming getting in the corners as best as I can?
I have a lot of experience refinishing firearms in which everything needs to be bare metal which is making me want to put lots of prep work in.

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I will try help you out here a bit. First off, does it have the original paint on it, or a couple repaints?

The best way to get your car cleaned up IS blasting, there is different media for different applications. You heard that blasting will warp your panels.....well sand blasting will warp your outside panels.....especially large flat panels. Get your car soda blasted, soda will get all the old paint off....and whatever else is hiding under that paint. Soda will NOT warp any body panels. Couple things to remember about Soda blasting, it is more expensive than sand blasting.....I had my whole duster soda blasted, and it cost me around 450 dollars. My car took them awhile thought because it had ALOT of repaints by previous owners, so my car took them alot longer than usual. i would say to keep the cost down for you to get the all the inside sheet metal, like the floors and engine bay, sand blasted and have all the outside cosmetic metal soda blasted.

You also need to remember that once a spot is sand blasted it is ready for work, but with soda blasting......any spot that gets soda blasted has to get neutralized. (Neutralizing the leftover baking soda, you can't see it but if you don't neutralize it it WILL cause paint problems) To neutralize soda you mix water and vinegar together and wipe down the soda blasted spots with that using a red scotch brite pad. Then you have to go over everthing with 80 grit on a DA sander. The 80 grit is to remove all the flash rust that will come typically in 10-20 minutes of the water/vinegar mixture.

Blasting will get in all those nooks that are about impossible to get to with sander.

hope this helps a bit