Soda Blasting - Recommendation

[jono]

I am trying to find a firm experienced in paint removal from GRP bodies to strip my Plus 2.

Ideally somewhere in northern England - don't mind trailering the shell to the right firm.

Can anyone make suggestions? So far drawn a blank in my neck of the woods - there are one or two around but they all use wet blasting and I am not confident they will handle a 40 year old GRP car shell with sufficient sensitivity.

Cheers.

Jon

[jono]

Crikey, 89 views and no suggestions...perhaps I need to set up doing it myself

Okay, then....how about anywhere down to say the Midlands and of course not fogetting Scotland as I'm not far from the border

[batfish]

hi Jon

Try Soda-Blast.co.uk. These are based in Birmingham and were the first that I read about doing this work. Also try UK Sodas blast.co.uk.

Regards

Andy

[richgilb]

My chosen paint shop (in the north, very popular place with members of the NYLOC) prefer to do it by hand with sandpaper....took 4 weeks to get 4 coats off.

[Elanintheforest]

Of course they prefer to do it by hand. ?30 an hour, 100 hours = ?3000 income. Pay the guy who's doing the work ?7 an hour = ?700 outgoing. Profit for the boss....?2300. It would only be a charity or a one man band who would prefer the soda blasting route. And the customer of course!

Mark

[richgilb]

More like 1200.....he took the chrome off, stripped the paint, repaired cracks on the nose, bonnet, boot & around the petrol cap, rebuilt a smashed front wing, filled in the fog light holes, seated an after market petrol cap, filled the body, low baked it, supplied the paint, sprayed it, finished it off, put all the trim back on. 4 grand all in. Not sure you could do all this other stuff for a grand?

How much do soda blasters charge normally?

[jono]

Richgilb,

I've dropped you a PM, can we have a chat about your paintshop (and I will tell you what I've been quoted for soda blasting )

Jon

[tdafforn]

I have heard good things about the soda blasting place in Brum (I think they're in tyseley)
I heard that they were happy to demonstrate on a small sample piece for free, so perhaps worth buying a knackered body panel of ebay and giving it a go
Tim

[twincamman]

why not do it yourself?????bulk soda is available so with a compressor and a sand blast nozzle you can save big money ------messy as hell though -----need a mask but its water soluble ----ed

[Elanintheforest]

Soda blasting is somewhere around ?600 - ?1000, depending on them coming to you, you going to them, how much filler in the car etc. Takes about 6 hours to do, but can take hours to sheet up / clean up afterwards.

It's expensive, and as I had 4 cars to do...that's why I bought a soda blaster!

Mark

[Tonyw]

Hi Mark,

Can Jono take his car to your place then!!.................although it is probably a bit too far.

So what sort of machine did you end up with? I have a sandblasing machine that appears to work similar to a soda blaster and have been wondering if I should try to get some soda and try it. My device pressurises the main vessel as well as working on the venturi principle is yours anything like this one;

[Elanintheforest]

Kind of, Tony!

Soda blasting works on a very different principle to media blasting. Media blasting uses the abrasive qualities of the media to cut through whatever it is you're trying to blast. The sharper / harder the media, the more quantity and the more pressure, the more damage!

Soda crystals explode on impact with whatever they are hitting, which will damage some targets (like paint) but not touch others, like glass or chrome. The crystals are not abrasive. Obviously, if you hit a delicate target with 100psi air stream and 50% volume soda, it will cause damage, just by the sheer volume and speed of stuff being thrown at it.

Soda blasting uses a lot more air and a lot less media than normal media blasters, and the airflow / media flow are separately and finely controlled. They are used a lot for removing graffiti from historic buildings, or paint from old beams, where in extreme cases, a pressure of 20 psi is used. When I bought the kit off the guy he demonstrated how delicate it could be by blasting his oily hands with it....took about 5 seconds to clean them, and it tickled!! Try that with a media blaster and you'll see bone pretty quickly.

So the soda blaster has more ability to control media and air volume, and the mix. It also can add in a water spray, which keeps the dust down and lets the target result be viewed more easily as you're going along. The real downside is the amount of air it needs. My compressor is rated at 35cfm, and is driven by a 4 cylinder diesel. The combination of the flat-out diesel engine and the air-blast noise from the nozzle is quite loud.

[jono]

Well guys, I think I may have found a company, and in my neck of the woods as well.

They are very experienced in stripping car body shells by plastic media blasting, doing all of the work for M Sport (Malcolm Wilson's rally team) but also use soda for delicate work and seem to understand the process very well.

I have left a panel for a test clean and will let you know how I get on.

Jon

[JJDraper]

The latest Moss tools catalogue dropped onto my doormat yesterday - Soda Blasting kit (excluding compressor) available for GBP 293, plus GBP40 per 50lb bag of media. Sounds pretty cheap to me. www.moss-europe.co.uk (no connection, I only bought a voltage stabiliser from them and have been getting catalogues ever since...)

Jeremy

[richgilb]

sorry to use this thread for something completely unrelated to Lotus.....but we have discovered geometric Victorian tiling under about 5mm of what looks like concrete screed in the hall. do you reckon a soda blaster would remove the screed?

sorry again and yes i know i should be asking this elsewhere.

rich