Looking for some sanding advice

[KevinB]

Situation is this...while I'm saving up for parts for my restoration I'm looking for elbow grease projects to save money down the road, specifically I'm wanting to start taking the paint off. It's currently yellow and I'll be going with silver. I'm sure the paint shop is gonna want to blast the nooks and crannies, but to save money I'd like to do the big areas myself.

So the idea is to take it down to bare metal and then spray it with something to protect it from rust. I've started on one quarter panel and have done from the back bumper to the door. I'm using a stripping disk, kind of like a 3m purple webbing disk. There was two layers of yellow and a layer of primer. Once I got it down to metal I sprayed a relatively light coat of cheap sandable primer.

My thinking is that the car will have to be sanded with 80 grit and a da eventually anyway to reduce the marks from the stripper, and the sandable primer should sand off easily.

I would sand it with 80 grit once I could afford an epoxy primer and a da sander. I'd likely use Eastwood's rattle can two part epoxy primer. Or is this step better left up to a pro, once they finish the body work?

Considering my long timeline and low budget, am I on the right track?

 

[Woods74]

I'd just get a Harbor Freight compressor and one of their awesome HVLP purple guns and some eastwood or summit epoxy primer and spray as I go...

Other than that it's a waste of time, I would just save the back-ache pay the $1500 and have it blasted and epoxy primed by a pro and be way ahead o' the game..

I wish I did; all by and angle grinder with a paint strip wheel, knot brush, and aircraft stripper; every nook, every cranny, never again.

 

[340sport]

It seems like a paint job is not in your near future. Removing paint now may keep you busy for a while but isn't really beneficial. The paint job is only going to be as good as your prep work and that doesn't necessarily mean that you need to go to bare metal. If the paint is tight on the body, you can sand it and repaint. Regardless, the cheap primer that you are spraying will need to be removed and it may not keep the car from rusting as much as you think it will. If your budget is low, scuff and shoot the car, don't strip it to bare metal.

 

[72bluNblu]

There's a reason primer and topcoat aren't the same. Primer doesn't stand up to UV light as well, and it's not meant to be topcoat.

If the car isn't going to paint any time soon, leave the paint on it. Taking it to bare metal, priming it with cheap primer, and waiting months or years for paint is not a good recipe for success.

 

[toolmanmike]

Agreed. My 66 has needed paint for the 10+ years I have owned it. Until the time comes for me to take it apart for paint, the old faded chalked out finish will remain. This makes me laugh, I had a couple young guns ask me how I did the paint. They thought it was a rat rod and that I did it on purpose. LOL

 

[KevinB]

Ok advice noted. I'll leave it alone and move on to other items

 

[ndeconte]

On the areas you did sand, get a couple spray cans of Eastwoods Epoxy Primer and get it on those areas to protect them....... the sandable primer won't protect the metal and you will see surface rust form through those areas, just a matter of time.

 

[72bluNblu]

On the areas you did sand, get a couple spray cans of Eastwoods Epoxy Primer and get it on those areas to protect them....... the sandable primer won't protect the metal and you will see surface rust form through those areas, just a matter of time.

This. The base over bare metal needs to be a sealer primer, not a sanding primer. And it's still won't last forever acting as the topcoat.