Hey guys, Just wondering who you would recommend for sand/soda blasting and which method you think would work best for paint/rust(surface included) removal on a mk2 escorts front clip.

Cheers.

Ez

A while ago someone put up some posts on buying/ setting up a blaster as an alternative to getting a pro.  I used a pro who charged me $250 an hour ie. $1000 for the whole car - he used an inert media. The soda blasting franchise in town had gone.  If you've got a bit of this stuff to do getting your own setup might be cost effective. Len

NQRS
A while ago someone put up some posts on buying/ setting up a blaster as an alternative to getting a pro.  I used a pro who charged me $250 an hour ie. $1000 for the whole car - he used an inert media. The soda blasting franchise in town had gone.  If you've got a bit of this stuff to do getting your own setup might be cost effective. Len

Thanks Len. Ive been weighing up the cost of a set up in regards to the job i need done and to do the front clip ill end up saving only 100 or so. Not to mention the clean up.

Ive spoken to a place in ringwood who were against soda blasting and quoted me $400 on a sand blast to do the complete front . The guys then told me for $200 extra they would clean and epoxy primer. Im yet to get other quotes here in Melbourne.

Sounds a bit like mine- pricewise. Clean up is messy- takes a fair bit of work with an airgun and vacuum cleaner to get rid of the blast media- it got into the darndest places. I had to cover the inside of my carport with black plastic to turn it into a spray booth, just managed to blow a coat of primer over the car before it got dark. If you look on the home page at the revolving pictures " RS project " was mine, the first pic taken when put in primer after blasting.  Might cost you a bit but getting them to clean and prime could be a big time saver, depending on what gear/ space you have  Len

Yep thats exactly my view.
I think the price is reasonable considering the mess it makes and the fact they're able to put it in primer straight away to avoid flash rusting. Cheers for sharing your experiences with it Len, much appreciated.

whooligan
One thing I would recommend if you are going to blast your car, make sure you have time to get straight onto restoring the car.
The primer wont last forever and surface rust with start appearing fairly quick.

I have stripped my Capri twice now because I have not been in a position to just get on and finish the car with work an stuff.

This time I have done a complete base coat (in colour to protect the metal, and give the paint a bit of depth. Hopefully that will buy a little time until I can set up again and allow a professional to do a better job than me.

Thanks for the heads up Glenn. That's exactly my plan.

I was told by my panel beater mate that the primer I put on  ( unknowingly ) was a " high build " primer- hence the yellow colour, which gets harder the longer you leave it, which was good as It took a while to get all my body work sorted, lot of stuff to be fixed other than rust.  Len

An extra $200 would be well spent Ez, let them do it.
-
Len- I'd have thought that you'd need to etch prime first, once the car had gone back to bare.
 Perhaps Len the high build  you used was did both.?
 
Any high build I have used is definitely 'softer'' when you sand it back because it goes on thicker, and it does dry harder as it ages and blends smoother than normal straight primer.
 
So I probably would have done:
-etch prime
- prime
-spot filler/stop putty
-high build primer
-guide coat
- top coats
-clear coat.
 
The single pack topcoat I bought recently (which is Satin Spruce but I think should have been the Wedgewood color of Juicemans car before he went all Porsche inspired ) was a water based enamel metallic, that is self clearcoating.
It's still in the tin, but is meant to be easier to apply, and you don't polish it when finished, the gloss is as it comes off the gun.
 
What happened to Acrylic or Enamel, and metallic needing clearcoats?
 
 

My panel beating mate cursed me for the hard work it was to strip off the primer I put on when it came time to get it back to bare metal when doing the panel beating and putting in the smears of body filler to get the body shaped properly. Once done then etch prime etc etc.  I ended up using 2pac with a UV stabilised clear coat for my final finish.  The weather was against me and I couldn't get the use of a spray booth , as I was originally going to use acryclic.  I still have 5 litres of Ford Diamond White sitting in my shelf at home!  It actually cost more than the 2 pac as not much demand for it anymore.  Len

I find a quality epoxy primer satisfactory to work with when put over bare steel, its not to hard to remove when needed for welding and stops surface rust for a long time if kept out of the weather.