Soda Blasting

[1969cjet]

Anyone had their car soda blasted? If so what were the results like and do you have someone to recommend. Thanks

Darren

[mert]

Yep, I had my coupe done. Chemical stripped the convertible, but the coupe had so much surface rust and bondo that blasting was the best way. Grinding woud have made a huge mess and taken ages... not cheap, but had the car and a ton of other parts blasted...

Was very happy with the results.

[ozbilt]

My opinion is do not soda blast. What remains draws moisture & is very hard to get rid of the residue. I have 2 cars that I have worked on & another that I have seen finished, that were soda blasted. All of them have issues.

Glass bead or garnet is OK if handled by a professional. Check their work before committing.

I would also not let them blast large flatter panels (roof & definitely not the bonnet or boot)

[scott66stang]

After i hand stripped the Fastback , i swore the next one was going to be soda blasted. Problem was , after i cut all the rust out on the covertible there wasnt much left to blast. Mike68 would know what i mean :rotfl:

[shermatt]

Love it and swear by it (did it for 4 years in Adeliade)

As Kerry said, Handled by a professional it can be a very good job but bi-carb soda does sit and solidify with moisture. I would fill all rail holes with kids plastacine including rockers and any other internal hole during the blasting. As the gun shoots near those holes, it wont allow bi carb to go down the rails etc.....just tell him to stay about 1cm away from plasticine areas.

Once the car is down, pull all plasticine out and hit the cars holes/vents/rails/underdash/towers/rails/cowl with the 15,000 PSI down all the holes...everywhere for 10 minutes....gets the lot.

Make sure you cover the upper cowl vents during blasting then remove cover and blast last. This process only works on a warm day so dont do it in the smack of winter.... Ive done my own cars during winter but learnt from the first to spend the time blowing it out and had an orbital sander ready, and then the booth prepped ready to roll straight in

Thats just my experience

Cheers

Matt

[scott66stang]

That is all great advise Matt as trapped soda and moisture would be the only downfall.

[ozbilt]

Agree Scott as the cars I have had done are all still weeping the crap. One on my lift at the moment (was done in the US) & the paint will not stick to it. All I can do is fill with cavity wax.

No way in the world would I recommend or get one done.

[shermatt]

My first car I did scott has some issues with that...but all the rest where fine once I got tricky on its arse with the plasticine...tried 100 mile hour tape first...no good

[scott66stang]

So once the car is sealed with primer , could you not just flush out the rails ,cowl etc with water , especially since a good soda blast is on a rotisory it can be rotated and well and truly flushed. Even though the holes are plugged , there is still all the gaps between the rails and floor for instance that the soda will get in when doing underneath. Then you can spray the cavity wax in there after the paint.

[muzz67]

SODA after it passes through the Blaster becomes SALT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[soc123_au]

Not a fan of soda, much prefer bead blasting. Reasons as per above posts

[tim_morrison82]

there is a mob in WA that has developed a media labeled 'diamond blasting'.

the finished product looks pretty damn good!

http://stripped-bare.com.au/

[scott66stang]

Heard of them , seem to have a good reputation , i think Chadd used them for some parts on the vert build.

[ozbilt]

Soda also does not remove rust & the pressure washing after, actually promotes it.

I used to get get my cars in the US plastic bead blasted, then the areas that we found rust was then touched up with garnet. Later in my stay they just blasted the whole lot using garnet. Over here my guy uses glass, works well.

[1969cjet]

Thanks for all the information on this. I have decided that I will be getting the underneath of the car bead blasted and the rest will be done by hand. I dont want to put anything near my car that even remotely promotes any rust.

Once again thanks for all the repsonses.