paint stripping chemicals - best?

[wibble_puppy]

hi everyone,

shortly to start stripping all the paint off my van - plans laid, space in garage booked, etc etc

wondered if any of you knew a good cheap source for a good (efficient) stripping chemical? Nitromors seems to be the one which is always mentioned, but knowing you lot there will be Knowledge out there about which brand is actually the best.

and where to get it to get best value

thanks very much!

juliet

[rayofleamington]

Nitromors seems to be the one which is always mentioned

I tend to use nitromors and have tried DIY centre cheaper versions but not found them to be better value.
As for stripping an entire Van - where do you stop? what are you going to do about window rubbers etc.. and are you doing up to the door seals.
If you remove windows (the only way to get a good strip and definately the only way to get a pucker respray) then be ultra careful not to let the stripper drip onto any dashboard paint or onto the interior (been there, done that, regretted it at my leisure )

Make sure the garage is extremely well ventilated.
Make sure you have a scrap pair of shoes that will be removed at the point you leave the garage, as you will be treading in paint residue and you will leave a trail everywhere you go.
Cover up and use goggles, but accidents can still happen as we are all only human. Make sure you have a bucket of clean water and cloths in the garage in case you get stripper on your skin (you often don't realise until it starts to burn), and I would also recommend having one of those eyewash bottles nearby in case it is quicker to use that than get your head under the nearest tap - especially if the tap is in the house as then you are guaranteed to walk paint stripper into the carpets in the haste ;-)

[jonathon]

beware the stripper!.
Stripper is by a long way the easiest though not the most pleasant of proceedures. The best place to buy stripper is your local bodyshop supplier,who will sell it by the 5 liters if need be. Go for the best quality you can afford as many cheaper options will take ages to work. The problem with a chemical strip is that you will need to go back to bare metal wherever you use it, as it will affect any filler under the paint,which will need to be removed. On vans and pickups which have large flat areas, these often have their fair share of filler.
To minimise the need for a total strip, try sanding through test areas on each panel to determine the extent of filler used. If its limited then chemical strip,
if a panel has been fully skimmed a' la Boyd Coddington style then choose the more labour intensive sand back method. Be sure to remove all traces of the stripper as it will cause havoc with any paint laid over it. Follow Ray's advice on health and safety issue's

[bigginger]

if a panel has been fully skimmed a' la Boyd Coddington style

I was wondering when that became standard practice - can I take it from you that it isn't?

[jonathon]

It really depend on how good the panel is to start with and how competant the bodyshop is to deal with the work in hand. The big flat panels are extreamly difficult to repair in the existing steel if it has been damaged badly or has a multitude of low and high spots. A good bodyshop will remove most imperfections with a hammer and dolly, and probably just use a thin skim of filler to finalise the panel.
I find the Boyd Coddington approach of spending days on shaping a panel in the metal then covering with a thick layer of filler to obtain a perfect flat finish and panel gap quite frustrating to watch, when most of his staff are so well qualified to do a proper job with the benefit of some outstanding tooling.
To answer your question directly, you will get exactly what you pay for,if you can find yourself a trustworthy bodyshop.Filler can hide an awfull lot very well until it either cracks, as it will do on commercial side panels or the rust which it is covering finally reaches fresh damp air. Filler used judiciously is not a bad thing, and is seen as the modern lead loading.

[bigginger]

Yep - I find the days of work sorting the panel, then skimming it a little hard to swallow. I'm absolutely not an expert, and not after (or capable of producing) the Californian 'perfect' finish, but if I can produce reasonable results without coating the entire panel, it's hard to see why they cant do better too. But then I guess I'm not entering cars in competitions, or trying to attract customers with the percieved quality of my panel finish...

[rayofleamington]

Who's this Boyd bloke??? - Is he the one I vaguely remember from 20 years ago that reshaped big yank tanks into something even wackier yet very cool?

[bigginger]

He features in a show called 'American Hot Rod' on H&L (Sky 133 - great channel except for the interminable fishing progs) which is a good watch for tips and examples of sheet work. I'd prefer it if there was a bit more car and a bit less 'human interest' and 'relationships', but I guess that's what some people want.

Not my kind of car normally, but a good show! http://www.boydshop.com/

[wibble_puppy]

thanks very much for all your tips and comments

ray i will be pinning a copy of your advice to the wall of the garage *puts eyewash on shopping list*

garage has an open front btw so hopefully no problems with ventilation

I'll be taking the van apart before starting to remove the paint - doors off, back off, wings off, grille off, bonnet off, etc etc, and then removing all the rubber and chrome and interior trim - basically everything which doesn't want the paint stripping off it lol. Am hoping to be able to keep the headlining in place just because I've heard it's such a b----- to get back in . Otherwise I'm aiming for a really thorough job, cos I want the (professional) metalwork and respray to be top notch so that hopefully I don't have to worry about it for several years!

I plan to use nitromors for main areas of panels, masking the edges, and then remove the edge masking and sand the edges with a diddy hand sander (I like power tools, me )

all other comments etc v welcome

juliet xxxx