Plastic Bead blasting?
 

I have not heard anyone say anything about plastic bead blasting on their cars. BAck in '86 I loaned a couple of vettes out to some guys to practice on when they were learning to use it and was more than pleased with the results. The cars came back with a light coat of dust on the interiors but nothing like when sand was used. In fact SS parts didn't need to be removed they came out polished like new. No residue in every crevice either. They bragged that they could take the paint down layer by layer if they wanted to! I had them leave traces of the factory primer so that I could sand it off myself. No warping of the panels either. Was there a downside to this? I still have a '73 L-82 Cpe. just the way it came back from them.

I was not trying to do a total restoration on them but just striping old paint and repainting a nice car to start with.

Is it still done anywhere?
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Re: Plastic Bead blasting?
 

Media blasting, be carful who you use I had a 66 L-72 coupe done and the owner thought it was a big deal to do it and put new media in the hopper and the media put pits into the gel coat. All vetts and glass parts since then I sand down with a da to prime and then block sand to gelcoat.

Re: Plastic Bead blasting?
 

Sounds like he was using too much pressure. These are not pitted and you can still see the last coat of primer. These guys had done a few metal cars and needed to practice on a vette or two. I closed the Bodyshop just afterward so didn't use them again. I want to see if they still do it cause they are who I want to do the 70 motion car of mine.

Re: Plastic Bead blasting?
 

The owner said it was from the new media ,it's edges needed to be worn down on steel parts before being used on glass. But high pressure could have done it also.

Re: Plastic Bead blasting?
 

Soda Blasting "baking soda" has worked the best for me on metal cars.(Never tried it on fiber glass) It doesn't harm Stainless, rubber or any mechanical parts that the medium may get into. It does a great job of removing any and all paint and primers.

It cleans up better than any of the other methods I have used.

The process doesn't work well on rust.

Re: Plastic Bead blasting?
 

Thsi must be a good way to do it cause one of "THE GRANDSPORTS VETTES" was trailered to Tulsa to be blasted before it was restored.!!!! You know that those guys wanted the very best for a key car such as that.

Re: Plastic Bead blasting?
 

I had a trunk lid plastic media blasted, and it turned out pretty good. It does not remove rust, and Nova deck lids are not painted on the front leading edge so I removed that small area with my sandblaster. I would also try the soda, I know guys who are very pleased with that media as well.