any one try to soda blast thier panels with the soda blaster from hf? or know of a good soda blaster to use to clean all the old paint from the panels?

I had mine glass bead blasted by a shop.



Looks nice and is very smooth!

Steve

I would happily water blast poly urethane but i would not water blast fiberglass as it would flake away to nothing and retain water within the panel for a long time. Before you think that water blasting is a good idea ask yourself why are you doing it? Fiero panels do not rust. If you do sandblast the car you will have to skim it with filler as high fill alone wont give a flat surface. Why destroy a perfectly good flat surface just so you don't have another color underneath when undercoats as well as metallics and pearls that require different color undercoats anyway. I would not soda blast and work on perfecting the flat surface your starting with. The whole purpose of soda blasting is to really uncover rust you didn't know existed so your paint job will last more than 2 years. With a fiero nothing is going to bubble up and if you prep your undercoat your paint job will be as permanent as starting from scratch.

What is water blasting?
That is one I have not heard of.
Nevermind, I read up about it.
I don`t think it`s generally used for automotive applications although I could be wrong.
I think he would be fine with soda blasting.
When I called about getting something soda blasted the guy said it usually takes a lot more material than sandblasting.
They use specialized equipment, but I have heard good results with the HF blaster, it just took a lot of time and a lot of soda to do it.
The advantage to using soda is that when you wash the part for paint prep the soda is water soluable, so all of the soda gets washed away, whereas with sandblasting it`s hard to get all of the sand out of all the little nooks and crannies.

[This message has been edited by TXGOOD (edited 06-03-2010).]

ok. so someone tried to soda blast thier panels and it did not work... or ...... it worked and warped the panels.. I have heavly oxidised paint from living on the coast in a driveway for 15 years with out moving. No rust happened but the panels look like crap. Also i have a car that was painted by maaco and i want to get the crappy maaco paint off. That is why i am looking into having it soda blasted. also have cracked paint that i dont want to spend hours sanding and screwing up the panel.

i bought a soda blaster from eastwood for 200 or 300 bucks i forget. i used it on my corvette and it was wonderful. you dont need to cover th car at all since the baking soda wont damage glass or trim as long as there is no paint or clear on the trim. i highly suggest a soda blaster. sodium bicarbonate comes in different grades as well. eastwood sells 30lb bags of the gritty soda which works best for a quick paint strip but when i ran out of it i just went to costco and bought arm and hammer baking soda. it is a lot finer grit and works slower but gets the job done when your waiting for your shipment to come in.

I got the front and rear bumper covers and the wing blasted for $75.00. Unless you plan on doing the soda blasting alot the money you spend to purchase it is a waste.
IMO.


Steve

Well 100 plus 50 for media doesnt sound so bad you just have to blast each panel off of the car.

How long does a 100 lb bag of media last? Or put another way.....how much soda does one need to blast a small car? I'm interested in one of these things to sandblast my Austin-Healey (similar to the MG Midget in their video), but if it takes a ton of soda then it may not be worth it.

well one bag lasted me about 10 minutes since i was toying with the settings and learning to use it. but since its about one 30lb bag for the hood of the corvette i have and half a bag for smaller size panels i would assume one bag would do the hood and front fenders on a fiero

quote Originally posted by shawnk: well one bag lasted me about 10 minutes since i was toying with the settings and learning to use it. but since its about one 30lb bag for the hood of the corvette i have and half a bag for smaller size panels i would assume one bag would do the hood and front fenders on a fiero

Thanks!