I wonder if any of you have run into this.
I am stripping off gobs of bondo around my headlight and sidelight pods.
Pink, green, black and white bondo.
There were cracks in the bondo and rust underneath.
The pink, green and black come off somewhat stubbornly with Jasco Professional paint and epoxy stripper, the most expensive brand available here. The white is very stubborn, not really affected at all by the Jasco. I’m trying not to wreck the lead underneath, and having to use a single edge razor blade to get it off, at 0.001" per scrape its gonna take awhile.
I wonder what that stuff could be? Anybody have a guess?
Hi,
I have not used anything beyond Nitromorse for some paint removal, instead of chemical I went the mechanical route. IMO a nylon brush on a power drill worked really well. Of course I wore breathing protection, the dust must be toxic or harmful if inhaled. My MKV also had all kinds of bondo, the drivers door bottom part had more than 1/2" layer of it. The nylon wire brush was able to sand off layer by layer without damaging the panels, solders or wood (the DHC door frames are beech).
Cheers,
Pekka T. - 647194
Fin.
Paint stripper needs to be applied VERY thick, If it’s not wet it 's not working , It’s not like paint. It needs to be applied as thick as icing on a cake. It’s not a time to be economical with it.
Adding to Ed’s comments, over time paint stripper evaporates and loses it’s potency. For stripping panels I liberally coat the panel in stripper, then cover the stripper in cling-wrap (food wrap) This stops it evaporating and keeps the stripper working against the paint. You can then leave it for a couple of days before scraping it clean.
Thanks, thick coating and cling wrap has worked well on the pink, green and black stuff.
On the white stuff, I surfed around the web and found a muscle car site that mentioned it was a brand called White Knight, and they had found a light application of the propane torch turned it to chalk.
So that’s what I did, just passing over it and listening to it crackle a few times, then it came off with a regular paint scraper. The lead underneath was not affected.
Here is some of that white stuff after chemical stripping.
Here I am with the propane torch and a very small flame, scraping off the white stuff. You don’t have to get it very hot, just so it crackles like bacon frying, just burning out the hydrocarbons, not hot enough to soften the lead.
Notice the little spots of rust that were under this professionally applied plastic filler. One of the reasons I do everything myself.
I found a signature on the pod, “Auguste Rodin”.
Ok not really, but there are body men, and then there are sculptors.
The piece of plastic works well.
A razor blade, you slice into the paint, not overly deep to cut into the metal. The score of the blade allows the paint remover to penetrate better into the paint making it more efficient.
Did you take the light pods off or is the original lead still there?
Always found it interesting that American cars, with regards to their lead leading, never seem to show the bubbling experienced on English cars.
Would love to know what they did differently?