The 'E' Type Forum

For those of you not familiar with the technique, dry ice blasting uses "dry ice" as the media, as opposed to sand / soda / shot etc blasting. The advantage is the media evaporates, leaving nothing behind apart from that which has been removed from the surface. It is also far more gentle to deal with and can take off paint in layers when done carefully and with the appropriate adjustment of the media throughput.

So I used it at the weekend to remove the layers of underseal from the boot area, boot lid and under the bonnet that a previous owner had thoughtfully applied...

Here is the removal of the underseal and undercoat down to the original factory primer below



and here from the boot lid



Interestingly, it also cleaned up the braiding on old cabling - so much the original colour markings were quite clear, Although where it is thoroughly decayed, it will strip it.

The footwells and interiors were also treated to remove adhesive residue. This worked perfectly without harming the paintwork. Even where there were big pieces of foil backed insulation, and green residue from glues and carpet backings, the whole lot came off simply and easily - and far quicker than the paint removal.

That's quite impressive on the boot lid Mark.

Simon

Seems pretty slow..

Speed factor can be varied, ice throughput, psi etc. Because I didn't want to expose bare metal, the power blast was turned back which means the time was longer.

Still quicker than stripping, chemicals and scrubbing.

Just taking the adhesive off the interior cockpit areas was very fast as it came off much easier. No video unfortunately.

Mark,

Have I understood correctly, you were doing this yourself?

Did you rent or (gasp) buy the machine?

Could you give a rough idea of costs?

Last time I enquired there were a few places that rented machines here in CH, but the bottom line was that it came to about the same price as taking the car/shell/part somewhere to have it done for you.

This I have found to be the best solution for stripping, cleanly and quickly while keeping the car "on the road" - which really is the deciding factor vs sending it somewhere for blasting.

I rented a machine before here in CH. Was about 650 CHF for a week. That didn't work very well as the compressor I had available wasn't up to the job. (http://www.polarjet.ch/)

This time I got it done in Austria. I could have gone to his premises or he also has a mobile service. Turns up with a van towing a big heavy duty compressor and does the job. About 1,000 CHF for the full day - and yes I did some of it myself. http://www.trockeneisstrahlen.tirol/

There are also some in Switzerland.
http://www.trockeneisstrahlen.com/ (mobile & rental).
http://www.baumann-automobile.ch/trockeneisstrahlen.htm
http://www.eisstrahltechnik.ch/

Now I've got it from your signature image, hold the revs at 4k dump the clutch and let the ice do the work!

Seriously interesting method - is the blasted surface affected by flash rust - being water based?

"Dry ice" is frozen carbon dioxide which simply sublimes and disappears into the atmosphere, should be no rust involved.