The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop Lifting one layer, possible?

I know this is a ridiculous question but, one never stops hoping for a miracle.
I have a 56 year old,factory blue paint job on my 3600, that I’ve been told is baked on . Many years ago, sometime in the 50's, the volunteer fire department sprayed it red. It looks like a very amateur paint job, loads of orange peel, runs, sags, thick spots, thin spots, dry spots, etc. It doesn’t appear that they sanded it or prepped it in anyway as the paint is lifting and flaking off all over the entire truck. It was probably enamel of some sort as lacquer thinner won’t cut it. All I get when I rub it with thinner is the red oxidized paint chalking off, does not soften it at all.
Does anyone think there is a way of possibly lifting just the red layer, of unbaked enamel? Other than just plain sanding off the red layer that is. I’m not trying to save the original layer, it needs refinishing as it is faded in all of the areas that are exposed where the red lifted. I would just like to get down to the base so that it, is all I have to work with.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

you may try a pressure washer. i bought a corvair once that had been parked under a tree for a while and had much dried bird poop on it. i was trying to remove the dried droppings at the quarter carwash(a long time ago). suddenly the paint started to bubble and i could peel off strips. when i got most of the top paint off i realized the car had been painted without a drop of prep, except for the center of the drivers door that had a large ding in it.

You could try mineral spirits or laquer thinner. Usually factory baked finishes are resistant to it but it will peel or dissolve rattle can paint pretty quickly. I've used it to remove graffiti on a couple of cars that I've had vandalized, it worked well.

I don't know if it's still available, but there used to be a product on the market called Peeler. It is intended for removing damaged clear off a modern base/clear paint system. It will take paint off a layer at a time as it only penetrated the upper layer. Check at the body supply stores.

Denny,
Just wondering what your aversion is to taking it down to bare metal? Although it was a pretty good finish in its day, that old Dulux baking synthetic enamel doesn't hold a candle to the newer epoxy's, 2K's, and urethanes applied over a properly prepared surface. I'd hate to go through the work and expense of a good repaint and have some of the old underlying coat fail. Plus you WILL need some bodywork. Trust me, no matter how straight the truck appears now, once you start priming and guidecoating, the amount of lows and highs will amaze you.
It really won't be much more work to go to metal if you have to remove some of what's already on there. In fact, my truck had one of those 29.95 Earl Scheib specials applied about 30 years ago over the original paint. That old Scheib enamel was alot tougher to remove than the factory paint. Once I got past it, the factory stuff sanded off fairly easy.

Bob

Your inarguably correct in suggesting that course of action Bob, that is what I eventually intend on doing. There is not enough rust to have it blasted or dipped, so I’m just gonna use a chemical stripper when I’m ready. There are a few very small, only surface rust areas that I will no doubt spot blast here at home, but 95% or better is solid with no rust.

I’m planning on driving it for 8 or 10 months and get it all mechanically 100% then do a frame up cosmetic job on it over the Winter. In the interim I just didn’t want it to look like it has the mange. I was just hoping there might be something that would cut the newer unbaked paint and not the older baked paint. A weekend spent on trying to make it look like one color and maybe I can get the wife to take a ride in it.
I’ve even been thinking of buffing with a course (real course) compound to see how much I could scuff off.
Peeler huh? Thanks Bill, never heard of that but I’ll look into that.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL

Was this what you were thinking about Bill?
Klean-Strip FS459 - Peeler Base Coat/Clear Coat remover in 10 oz. Aerosol cans.
Denny Graham
Sandwich, IL