Soda blasting interior panels?

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Righty Tighty

Righty Tighty

Blame it on the dog
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Howdy FABO, I have a ‘74 Barracuda and someone before me appears to have painted the door panels. Whatever they used, it’s flaking off and is in need of some cleanup.

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I’ve been thinking of a way to prep them for plastic dye, and I’d like to keep the original texture, so I thought of soda blasting since it’s relatively gentle. Has anyone tried this?
 
Righty Tighty said:
Howdy FABO, I have a ‘74 Barracuda and someone before me appears to have painted the door panels. Whatever they used, it’s flaking off and is in need of some cleanup.

View attachment 1715948018

I’ve been thinking of a way to prep them for plastic dye, and I’d like to keep the original texture, so I thought of soda blasting since it’s relatively gentle. Has anyone tried this?
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I'd also look into dry ice blasting. It's even gentler and highly effective. I have a vendor that uses it to clean plastic injection mold tooling in-machine without disassembly and it works great without damaging textures or other sensitive surfaces.
 
Wow, I’ve never heard of dry ice blasting. Thanks for the tip. The reason I was looking into soda blasting is that I could do it myself. Is dry ice blasting expensive?
 
Righty Tighty said:
Wow, I’ve never heard of dry ice blasting. Thanks for the tip. The reason I was looking into soda blasting is that I could do it myself. Is dry ice blasting expensive?
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Depends. The equipment is $5-10k to get all setup and the ice runs something like $10-100 per pound (mostly depending on how it's made, on-site equipment tends to cost more electricity but off-site while more efficient comes with a convenience cost). Then you're paying for labor wrapped up in there too, so $55-80/hr shop rates wouldn't be abnormal. figure a couple hour per panel, and you're looking at $200 per panel pretty quick. Some shops might have better rates/costs though, so it would be worth inquiring a few places if you can even find it as a service. If you can find a place that rents the stuff out, or would rent a booth, you might save quite a bit over that too.

Soda blasting is like micro sand blasting from what I've seen. It's pretty gentle, but it's still abrasive and so you may wind up with more of a micro-texture on the surface than you'd like. If you plan to paint/dye over it, it may not matter too much though.
 
I would be so tempted to NOT blast them, cuz I know I would mess them up. I would be tempted to scuff them by hand to be on safe side.
Good luck
 
I would try some SpicNSpan on an interior spot to see how it reacts with that particular plastic. I've used it on other interior parts that I wanted to completely clean and prep for vinyl paint. TSP might do the job to, but, there again, I try a test spot first.
 
There is a woman on u tube called Sarah-n-Tuned who just did a dry ice blasting video, she's kinda goofy, I like that. I bet it would work just fine.
 
Find a mild paint remover that wont damage the plastic. These were molded in black so that is paint someone put on there.
For paint prep check out SEM's plastic prep and adhesion promoter (sand free). This is the best way to not loose the detail that is molded in. The SEM vinyl/plastic paint is awesome stuff.
 
Thanks everyone, I think I have some junk plastic parts laying around I can experiment with. Sounds like there are many options available that are less abrasive, so I'll try them out.
 
I have had excellent luck with the finest grit glass beads I can get, cranking the pressure going to my blasting cabinet all the way down, and then increasing the pressure very slowly. Usually at about 15-20 PSI (measured close to the compressor about 25-30 feet away), the media will just barely be coming out of the gun, and it will be slowly (and safely) stripping that paint. I've done it.
 
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