This is against my better judgment to respond here but I was asked to as a favor by another member here.
First as I read the above ideas for neutralizing a soda blasted car, this is not an area you want to play bench chemist with.
The reasons the majority of the manufacturers have distanced themselves from soda is because of the advice the actual soda blasters have given the shops and it is all over the spectrum and that is why the problems
.
100's of restored cars and street rods have had problems, such as shop in NC that has to 60's corvettes peeling and two other 69 restorations because the soda guy said hey just DA it treat it like any other sandblast job. The blaster has moved out of state and as I understand it, that was a wise move for him.
Will it work? Sure, and here are two ways i know for a fact that do work, if the rest of you want to argue acids, I'm not interested until you have done a car and driven it six months, then we will know it works.
One blaster uses purple power with a steam cleaner and rinses the car with water and he does this three times, then DA's the car with 80 grit, washes with wax and grease remover and sprays epoxy. Does it full time and will not blast a car unless he sprays the epoxy so it is done right.
Other way is warm soapy water with a scuff pad doing a panel at a time and rinsing with a hose, two or three times to be safe.
Remember if any of the wash step drys it must be retreated because the water will not neutralize that spot. (Just like an acid treatment does)
All the paint companies have been burnt by these soda jobs and the best thing I ever did was post in the tech book and on the web site that our products will not work over a soda job.
Just kinda got tired of someone calling me and the soda guy said I had a bad batch of epoxy, the finale straw for me was when a restro place doing the same car for the second time called me and said 1/2 the car this time was done in S&W etch and the other half in your epoxy and your epoxy is bad. I said how is the S&W and he said they have a bad batch also.
That was lottery winning odds for sure.
Why bother? Media blasting is same price and there is a media to do anything you want done to your car.
If you want more info go to
www.southernpolyuurethanes.com and on front page click the box that says "SPI USER FORUM" type in soda and there is a large discussion there covering anything you want to know.
