[vettegirl]

what would be the correct grit of sand paper to use on a orbital sander to remove old paint from fiberglass? my car is a corvette with the o.e.m.paint on it only.(only one layer of paint) and after the car is striped would I sand with 320 and then 600 before I paint?thanks in advance.vettgirl

[wes m]

at a minimum strip the paint with 80 grit or 120 but dont sand too far.You will have to prime the entire car posibly with a high build primer because of how coarse the fibreglass grain is.Once that is done than sand primer I always block the primer first with 400 and and orbital it with 600 and 800.Try that hope you the best of luck.

Wes

[vettegirl]

Thanks Wes, for all the great info,hope my project will come out o.k. http://www.hotrodders.com/forum/newr...e=1&p=1194013#

[302 Z28]

Better be careful about using abrasives to strip that Vette, you could do far more damage that to it than you bargained for if you remove the gel coat. I suggest you shoot a PM to member Shine and see what he recommends as he is pretty much the resident Vette body expert.

Vince

[mitmaks]

I would use paint stripper designed to work specifically on fiberglass. You dont want to sand into fiberglass

[OneMoreTime]

Originally Posted by mitmaks

I would use paint stripper designed to work specifically on fiberglass. You dont want to sand into fiberglass

no no no...and no..strippers can penetrate into the glass or smc and leave a BIIIIIG problem..use a scraper and be real careful around the sharp conttours speciall on a Sting ray as one can ruin a vette body in a heartbeat..

Sam

[mitmaks]

Originally Posted by OneMoreTime

no no no...and no..strippers can penetrate into the glass or smc and leave a BIIIIIG problem..use a scraper and be real careful around the sharp conttours speciall on a Sting ray as one can ruin a vette body in a heartbeat..

Sam

If you re-read my post I said DESIGNED for fiberglass and yes they are out there and they wouldn't touch fiberglass/plastics. There's strippers designed to even take paint down to e-coat.

[vettegirl]

Thanks,To all you guys,but now I'm really confused .to strip, or not to strip (no pun intended) Can't I just sand the paint off?

[mitmaks]

you said its original paint? Then there shouldn't be layers and layers of old paint on there. Might be easy to try and sand it down with 120 grit being carefuly not to dig into the fiberglass. Try one panel and see how that works

[oldBodyman]

"Can't I just sand the paint off?"

you didn't say what year Corvette, but yes, SAND it off. Stripper is an ugly mess, especially with a Corvette. I would start with 150 grit and work up from there. Factory sealer should be gray and factory primer should be red oxide. As soon as you see the gray sealer change over to 240 - 320, you don't want the 150 scratches going too deep. Same thing when you see the red primer, change over to 320 - 400, hand block with guide coat and 600.

I do suggest 3M Clean Purple DA sand paper, cuts clean and fast, lasts forever and completely even grit, NO stray grits of a coarser size. Also suggest 3M dry powder guide coat, no fuss, no muss, no dry-time and NO overspray.

Cover all edges and body lines and openings with 3 layers of masking tape, you can hand block this little bit off. Corvettes are like sanding an egg, all 3D curves, use a sanding block SOFTER than a Dura-Block and progressively softer for each finer grit. You should be able to dry sand this all the way to 600 grit.

Good luck with it.

[wyomingclimber]

Is it necessary to sand all the paint off? If it's in good shape, could you just knock the gloss off, primer, and paint?

[needforspeedi977]

go to www.carlsautobody.net his phone # is on the site 35 years experiance. hes a good freind of mine and will be glad to help. he has done a lot of vetts. tell him hillbilly said to call.

[oldBodyman]

"If it's in good shape, could you just knock the gloss off, primer, and paint?"

Yes, that can be done and is 1000's of time a day BUT it has it's problems:

RE PRIME, if the paint is sound there is no want or need to waste the time and material, just use a sealer.

FILM THICKNESS, mechanical leverage against the adhesion usually means stone chips. Build-up at the jams will also cause chipping problems.

SOLVENT LEACHING, whatever is under the fresh paint will absorb the solvents and hold them for weeks killing the shine. The solvents may also damage the bond between coats (primer - sealer - base color - pearl coat - clear coat) leading to total failure. Think of a pealing Caravan.

PREVIOUS REPAIRS, can explode from the solvents leading to expensive re-dos.

COLOR CHANGE, stone chips really show up and all colors are translucent so they pick up the color cast of what is underneath.

It takes too much time and expense to repaint, much cheaper and easier to do it right the first time, just take it down to the factory primer and work from there.