Soda blasting

[TonyWylde]

Can anyone recommend a reliable soda blaster in the East London/Essex area, preferably mobile? I've looked around, but I would prefer a known quantity. My poor old back won't stand manually stripping my paintwork and I would hate to hand it over to the wrong person.
Thanks in advance,
Tony.

[Billelan]

I’ve just had my car done by a fibreglass specialist spray shop in the UK. They do not recommend soda blasting as it can cause untold harm. They recommend manual stripping as the only safe way forward.

[berni29]

Hi

I am going to try some fibreglass paint stripper on a body I have that needs the paint removing. I have a family member who has been in the refinishing business for 40 years and he says it will be fine.

I will do a post on it when the time comes......

Berni

[alan.barker]

Soda Blasting was used on the Bonnet of my 1976 TVR 3000M and no problem at all. Very good result indeed.
Alan

[JonB]

My paint shop didn’t recommend soda blasting because it leaves a residue that must be washed off. Which means the entire body has to be dried out fully before any paint goes on. He is going to remove the paint the hard way, by sanding. Anyway I’ve seen his work - outstanding - so I trust him on this matter. Just as long as I don’t need to pick up any sandpaper!

[alan.barker]

Soda is just the general word used.
There are lots of different vegetal things also e.g. walnut shells or whatever turns you on. Nice and soft not too agressive.
Alan

[Andy8421]

Soda is just the general word used.
There are lots of different vegetal things also e.g. walnut shells or whatever turns you on. Nice and soft not too agressive.
Alan

Alan,

I am not sure that is correct.

It is the shattering of the sodium bicarbonate crystals as they impact the surface of the material to be stripped that provides the cleaning effect.

Other techniques using walnut shells or similar rely on the abrasive effect of the blast media.

Andy.

[alan.barker]

Yes i see what you mean
Here in France vegetal blasting is used alot.
I know as you can see in the photo the result is spot on.
Alan

[TonyWylde]

It's a funny subject, this soda blasting. Some people reckon if the operative is clued up it's the way to go, others say it's too destructive. Spyder Engineering do it and having seen their work I wouldn't have a problem trusting them with my car, but they're not really local to me. I think I have settled on soda blasting because the memory of stripping the car with a chisel 25 years ago still makes me cringe. My back, hands, elbows and every other part of me would never stand up to that torture again. Thanks for the replies lads, cheers,
Tony

[alan.barker]

Hi Tony,
Good luck and hope it turns out as good as m 3000M
Alan

[TonyWylde]

Thanks Alan. I hope it does too, that's a beautiful looking car. I'd be more than happy with a result like that. Fingers crossed.

[Andy8421]

It's a funny subject, this soda blasting. Some people reckon if the operative is clued up it's the way to go, others say it's too destructive. Spyder Engineering do it and having seen their work I wouldn't have a problem trusting them with my car, but they're not really local to me. I think I have settled on soda blasting because the memory of stripping the car with a chisel 25 years ago still makes me cringe. My back, hands, elbows and every other part of me would never stand up to that torture again. Thanks for the replies lads, cheers,
Tony

Tony,

I had planned to use Spyder to soda blast my Elan, and visited them a year or so ago to discuss this along with collecting some new ladder frames for the door openings as mine had rusted away.

They told me that they had stopped soda blasting Elans and had gone back to the "chisel and elbow grease" approach as the rectification time for cars that had been blasted was longer than the time taken to scrape the paint off. You may want to check with them that this is still true.

If you do decide to soda blast, could you come back and report the outcome?

Thanks,

Andy.

[smo17003]

I'm currently stripping my S3 FHC using a mixture of scraping and sanding. The flat areas can be stripped fairly easily, but it's the crevices and angles that become time consuming e.g. the channel around the boot aperture, the front lamp recesses and the door shut angles. Perhaps a 50/50 approach to stripping would work i.e. get the crevices and angles blasted, and then attack the flat panels by scraping and sanding.

Mike