'60 - Paint Stripping

[Ted L.]

Three plus gallons of Spray Stripper later, I've removed the Tasco Turquoise from the body of my '60. Just seconds after you spray it on the paint runs off like syrup. Right down to the baked-on primer. That's where the trouble begins. The primer is too splotchy to leave as it is. At this point I can either sand it off down to the gel coat or continue with the stripper. Either way is going to be a lot of work. Does anyone have experience to advise me how to proceed?

[Patrick T.]

Re: '60 - Paint Stripping

Ted, I always used the thick pasty kind of paint and finish remover which clings to vertical surfaces. Shake it up, apply 1 square foot at a time with a throwaway paint brush, put on a rubber glove and using lots of fine steel wool, take the rest of the primer off. It's slow, but it always worked for me; just don't let it sit on the fiberglass too long. Sanding seems like the long way around. Good Luck. Patrick

[John M.]

Re: '60 - Paint Stripping

Ted, what I did was continue with the spray stripper and use a coarse scotchbrite pad and scrub the primer until I see nothing but bare glass. The primer is like a sponge and even though it looks untouched it has soaked up a lot of stripper and with a little elbow grease it will scrub off. Be sure to scrub good with warm sopay water and wipe down with lacquer thinner or acetone as soon as possible to prevent the glass from soaking up any stripper. John

[Stewart L.]

Re: '60 - Paint Stripping

Ted, I would reccomend that once you hit primer that you water sand the primer off with a rubber block and 180 grit sand paper. There is no gel coat on your car and you need to stop sanding as soon as you hit the fiberglass. There are faster ways to go but this way will preserve the fiberglass and make a good surface for the primer. I have seen too many cars over the years stripped to fiberglass with stripper that have mystery bad spots surface after the paint is applied because the stripper sucked into a stress crack or bonding seam. I wont even get stripper close to a pre SMC Corvette. Its a lot more work but the results are better.

[Larry Allen #11708]

Re: '60 - Paint Stripping

Ted, I agree with the other posts to get as little stripper on the bare glass as possible. Most of the primer areas that are left are usually low spots that were filled in with primer/sander at the factory. If you remove all of it you will have low spots, if you try to sand it all out you may sand off the high spots of fiberglass. I left some of the primer on and lightly sanded the entire body with a block to get a feel for what was high or low areas. If you feel you have high areas of primer I would take it down with the sanding block, SLOWLY. The final paint will look a lot better. I think leaving some of the original primer is less risky than striping the glass too far. IMHO