If you have access to a sand blaster you might try using some "plastic media" in the gun to strip the paint. The plastic media is said to be harmless to the subsurface, i.e., fibreglass, thin or soft metals and I believe nylons and plastics as well. If you have a compressor and a Wal Mart near by, you can pick up a Campbell Hausfeld sand blasting gun for about $12.95. It comes with a 10 foot hose and just plug it into your compressor and blast away. The hose has a steel pick-up tube at the sand end and I use a clean and dry 5 gallon paint bucket to hold the media (silica sand is all I have used for parts clean-up) and it works great. Recently I cut the hose length to about 5 feet and now the gun really sucks - literally! Picks up the sand much better. If using sand to do stripping, I like 60 grit as it seems to flow better and not clog the gun. If the gun clogs, usually just a light tap on it will clear it up. With the shorter hose though, it doesn't seem to clog much at all now.
The silica sand costs about 7 bucks a bag and lasts quite a long time. I usually just blast in the back yard so I don't have any clean up - I need to make a cabinet soon. I did our entire car with this little gun and it paid for itself in about the first 5 minutes of use. It really works! I have also done some thinner metals with the silica sand and found that all it actually did to the surface was cause a very slight, almost undetectable to the feel, pitting and with a good coat of Vari-Prime or other self etching primer, you never knew it was blasted. It probably actually helps prep the surface for a better adhesion of the paint material. This may be the same result with bumper plastic, but I would do a test first.
And, as 66Fastback says, the flexible bumper paint needs a flex agent/elastomer added in the mix.
As far as body dings and other touch up - is your car clear coated? If so, it would help to know the make and style of the paint. Some older base coat/clear coat systems were a pain to touch up in that the clear coat needed to be feathered away from the touch up area, so that the touch up paint could be applied and let dry. Then the clear coat could be added and sanded and buffed. Newer paint systems are more user friendly in that they are more compatible / mix together for easier touch up.
Hope this helps.
Neal
[This message has been edited by Neal Jackson (edited 07-24-1999).]
|