Shell Preparation

[chrisvine]

Hi,

I'm looking at various options for preparing the shell for painting and have been looking into a company called Surface Processing (http://www.surfaceprocessing.co.uk) and would like to know if anyone has had any experience of their process or views on whether it is a good idea.

The main benefit I see is that the electrophoretic priming should give very good protection once the shell has been stripped back to clean steel.

The downside is that they mentioned that the stripping process 'may or may not' remove lead loading. Making the assumption that it does (ie worst case), the lead loading would have to be reapplied. Therefore the primer would need to be removed around these areas, resulting in quite a lot of the primer being removed.

Does anyone with more body work/painting experience have any views?

Thanks
Chris

[1954Etype]

Hi,

I'm looking at various options for preparing the shell for painting and have been looking into a company called Surface Processing (http://www.surfaceprocessing.co.uk) and would like to know if anyone has had any experience of their process or views on whether it is a good idea.

The main benefit I see is that the electrophoretic priming should give very good protection once the shell has been stripped back to clean steel.

The downside is that they mentioned that the stripping process 'may or may not' remove lead loading. Making the assumption that it does (ie worst case), the lead loading would have to be reapplied. Therefore the primer would need to be removed around these areas, resulting in quite a lot of the primer being removed.

Does anyone with more body work/painting experience have any views?

Thanks
Chris

We had the car I am project managing the restoration of dipped and you have to be very careful. Providing you have the car dipped, rust repaired and then sent back for coating, you would probably be ok. I was alarmed to see the amount of rust coming from the areas where metal was joined with spot welds following just the dipping process.

If I was stripping a shell, I'd proabably go with media blasting of some sort'

[vipergts]

I concur

I had my Dodge Charger dipped and e coated.

Apart from the masses amount of damage the car received I am sre there is acid lurking in the car and between panels etc.

I'm definitely going the media blast route on my S1

[38E]

So how does media blasting remove rust from inside lap seams and box sections?

If there's any rust at all in those areas, the metal needs to be cut out and replaced.

[chrisvine]

Thanks all for your views and first hand experience.

As Clive mentioned, one of the benefits I saw was the coating of the sections that cannot be accessed once all the body preparation had been done - such as the interior of the sill sections, bulkhead, rear suspension box sections and boot strengtheners. I had planned to have all the body back to a temporary primer state and repairs done before having it dipped and e-primed. Then get lead loading and the final painting done.

The potential for having remains of the acid/pickle trapped in spot weld seams would be a real concern though, let alone the risk of damage to the shell during the process.

Perhaps it's a process that sounds good but traditional methods could be equally effective without incurring the unnecessary expense and risks.

[vipergts]

You can't prep the shell then dip it. The primary benifit of dipping is that is gets rid of EVERYTHING except good metal and that's exactly what you need.

I'm not sure how much gets done in the box sections. For example under my rear arch wells the car came back with heavy rust where there was air trapped where acid had done its part but niether the wash or ecoat had any effect and it makes me wonder where else thsi might have occured.

My car was filled with wax but I can see tiny steaks of rust appearing from between the two skins of the bonnet for example.

[chrisvine]

Thanks. I think I'm convinced it's probably best to avoid. Appreciate your views.

[ChrisC]

I had my entire car media blasted and after several months I am STILL trying to get all the stray media out of cavities etc... I repeatedly blast everything with air and vacume everywhere I can get to but it is a bit of a pain

Just somethign to bear in mind before you spray the car... but I am more than happy with the results