The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Paint and Body Shop To sandblast or not to sandblast

I initially eliminated media blasting of my body panels as an option mainly due to cost but also because I wanted to do as much on this truck as I possibly can. I started on the truck bed because I thought it would be easiest and I could start to hone my body working skills on flat panels.

So far I have only 1 bedside completely stripped and I am fairly pleased with my dent removal efforts. The dilemma comes from the rust I found under the bent and partially detached angle strip. The bed side has numerous areas of rust pits. The pits are smaller than the head of a pin and the deepest ones might penetrate halfway thru the bedside. All of the pits are separated by at least some full thickness metal. Overall, I would estimate more than 80% of the metal that will be under the angle strip is solid full thickness metal.

I will be attaching the angle strips by welding thru numerous holes I drilled to remove the old strip and attach the new. I originally planned to just treat the area with phosphoric acid before welding in the angle strip. Looking at the pits, I thought perhaps treating the area under the angle strips with a rust encapsulator product would help but I do not know how that would affect welding the holes. The outside of the bed side would be clean and the angle strip would be clean but the rust encapsulator on the underside of the bedside would have to burn off at least slightly. Not sure what that would do to the weld.

The better option would be media blasting. The problem with that for me is it would put everything on hold since there is no money for that for a while. I am hoping to hear from someone else who faced this issue and how you dealt with it.

Chuck

the phosphoric acid will do what blasting would, eliminate the rust .... thing that works for me in that situation is to use a high zinc weld-thru primer after the phosphating, but watch out for the fumes .... you can grind away the zinc to clean metal just at the points your welding holes are, leaving the zinc protecting the rest of the hidden area between the pieces

Bill

I just got back both front fenders on my 58, the guy sandblasted both and coated in a very thick epoxy primer. Got in all the tight spots and found some rust I didn't know was there. They look great, and he did them for $75 a piece, no tax. I'm going to take him the cab, doors, inner fenders, radiator shroud, etc. I don't imagine there is a better alternative for me personally. I think the price is fair.

Hi, there is a tool that might help it is called a spot blaster for doing small areas of body work it is made so when You use it it does not make a big mess and does not need a big compressor its hand held and small ,could be just what You need to do small areas of pitting.


Pete

What Bill said.

Thanks for all the good advice. I looked the area over again tonight and it isn't quite as bad as I described. I have become more comfortable using phosphoric acid and I think I will treat each finished panel with that and see how it looks. May use the high zinc primer, just in a band under the angle strip. By just treating with phosphoric acid now I can leave my options open about media blasting or not until later.

Chuck

I have been removing rust with what seems to be all the methods on my 53 3100. Started with abrasive wheel on a grinder then moved to phosphoric acid and finally purchased a small pressure pot media blast system. Although the media blast is visually very effective I have noticed what seemed to be bare metal one evening become slightly more rust colored within 24 hours even when kept in a garage. Granted, I am working with lots of light to heavily pitted rust but I believe rust is invasive down to the microscopic level and trusting media to get it all is a mistake. I plan to mist the media blasted metal with phosphoric acid and let it dry before I do the epoxy primer.

Get some acid proof gloves and give it a good scrub with a piece of scotchbrite. That will leave a gorgeous hunk of bare metal to tinker with later.