Next month, a 300se/c shell I just picked goes under the knife. It's already stripped of anything that can be unbolted, except the suspension and steering. The air suspension parts have been replaced with suitable blocks of wood.
She needs all the old paint, underside crud, bondo and rust removed. She needs the weak metal cut out and new panels welded in. She'll get primed and painted some suitable pretty color; probably lacquer rather than a color+clearcoat. I'm not at the point of making a decsion on paint, either brand, technology or color. Right now, lets talk about what needs to be removed.
Should I go with Sandblasting, Soda blasting, Dipping or plain old brute force grinding and scraping?
Not having time to turn around, let alone work on this car, I won't be doing any of the work myself and instead will pay somebody else to make it all happen (Like I really want to do the underside scraping anyway).
Doing the work myself would be an option actually, if I had a means of rotating the car on its side. I'm not rushing out to by a tool to do it, as they tend to be about 1,000$ and need room I don't currently have available.
Costs are obviously an issue here, but lets not discuss that until I find vendors to do the work. I can drop the car off at a restoration shop in WV that charges a bit under 50$/hour and let them do the whole job (not!). I can drop the car off in GA and let some undocumented workers deal with it in their spare time (well, maybe). Considering that I live in NY and consider traveling to PA or WV about my limit on reaching out to a vendor. Can anybody suggest vendors other than...
- Kwik-Strip in Allentown, PA. They would dip the car.
- Blastco in Quakertown, PA. They will plastic media blast it.
- Ludwig Sandblasting in Reading, PA. They will sandblast it, but not the underside.
- www.ctsoda.com in Branford, CT. They will soda blast it at my place. Which means I need a way to turn the car over.
There are a couple of pros and cons with each technique. The simple ones are:
- Sandblasting can warp sheet metal. Not an issue for a car where the sheet metal panels have been removed. Also, the vendor selected will get yelled at if they screw up on something so obvious.
- Dipping can leave residual acid in places that will cause grief later. Anybody have a real-life experience to share on this?
- Soda blasting is environmentally "safe" compared to sand, but most vendors I found are mobile trucks w/o their own facility to work and I don't want them doing it at my place. One point is very good. The other is very bad.
More than likely, once the crud is gone, everything will get a flash coat of primer and the car will sit for a while until I find a shop ready to do the welding, prep and painting.
How long can the car stay in primer like this?
Any issues I didn't address? The details on turning a really pretty shell into a working car are outside the scope of this discussion.
Thx -CTH