Media blast or Strip?

Any part that has hidden 'pockets' or folded over sheet metal should NOT be stripped, assuming you mean chemical stripping. The stripper gets in areas that cannot be cleaned out well and it will corrode the metal. Parts such as the valances are safe to strip, as well as the cowl. Hood and trunk lids should be media blasted. And done by someone who's well aware of the consequences if done incorrectly.

gjz30075 said:

Any part that has hidden 'pockets' or folded over sheet metal should NOT be stripped, assuming you mean chemical stripping. The stripper gets in areas that cannot be cleaned out well and it will corrode the metal. Parts such as the valances are safe to strip, as well as the cowl. Hood and trunk lids should be media blasted. And done by someone who's well aware of the consequences if done incorrectly.

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So you're saying all those rich guys who have their cars acid-dipped and then treated with phosphoric acid are doing it wrong? And that the cars are going to corrodeaway at all the seams?

Do not soda blast. To many things can go wrong it if it is not cleaned right after soda blasting. A lot of the major paint manufactures say not to use their products after it has been soda blasted.

mikethebike said:

So you're saying all those rich guys who have their cars acid-dipped and then treated with phosphoric acid are doing it wrong? And that the cars are going to corrodeaway at all the seams?

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Possibly. I've seen dipped panels such as hoods and trunks that have corroded away at the seams. It's possible they weren't cleaned out properly but I think I'd rather take my chances with media.

If you have a good media blaster who is experience in doing body's your probably ok. Double check their work when they say their complete. On our Mustang the blaster did a poor job and a lot of detail blasting had to be done by the body shop. As far as chemically stripping (dipping), go with caution, I have personnaly had problems with that approach. This occurs in the overlapped seams, no matter how much neutralizing I tried, after a period of time, I would get leaching out of the seam under paint. If you have panels that do not have any overlapping seams, the dipping works fine, especially if the shop offers electrostatically primer services. I did this on my '64 stepside truck and had the leaching occur on exterior seams with problems, on the components w/o seams not problems. Also did a '39 Buick sedan, HUGE car via stripping - same problems with leaching