Sand or Soda Blast?

[FoMoCo]

Hey, all. Back from the deep south (Kentucky) With some clean metal. I'm wanting to have the doors and hood cleaned but am worried about abrasive blasting. Im mostly worried about the doors, from the belt line trim down. This is flimsy and seems like it'd warp. Most of the truck was cleaned with Aircraft brand Klean Strip, and then gone over with 3M's Clean Strip roloc disk. But this is very time consuming. Which is best?

Nick

[hardtailjohn]

If you're going to blast, then I'd recommend soda. I've had excellent luck having sheet metal soda blasted. It wont remove heavy rust or anything like sand, but it doesn't seem to warp the metal either. If you get a real heavy handed operator, it can do damage, as I had a Kenworth cab that a guy got carried away around some rivets with, and he made a bit of a mess of some fiberglas, but he didn't mess up any aluminum or steel.
I personally like the stripper, but it's messy, smelly, and not too great for your health either...
John H.

[FORDification]

I've been doing all my cleanup work with a small portable Harbor Freight sandblaster. It doesn't put out nearly as much pressure as the larger commercial blasters, so it's perfect for the do-it-yourselfer. It has enough oomph to quickly strip away paint and rust but it's not so aggressive that it'll warp panels. I fully intend to completely sandblast every single body piece on my truck prior to painting, and from all the work I've done so far, I'm completely confident that it won't warp any panels. I'd be less inclined to use a sandblaster on newer cars, however, but our old trucks have much thicker sheetmetal than the tin-foil cars today.

However, like John mentioned, with a larger commercial-type blaster there will be higher working pressures which could easily warp some body panels if you leave the stream of sand in one place too long so that it builds up heat. You could probably even get away with a larger blaster if you were very vigilant and kept the nozzle moving at all times....but the changes of damage DO increase. However, if you take your panels to someone who knows what they're doing you'd probably be OK....that entails turning down the working pressure of the sandblaster and standing a little farther away.

The cleanup with soda is much easier, since it can literally be washed down the drain. It leaves the metal much smoother than with sandblasting, and pressure-washing your piece will dissolve the baking soda from every nook and cranny, which isn't the case with sandblasting. I've never personally tried it though...but if you're worried about damaging thin sheetmetal, then it's an option. Another is plastic media. From what I know, a good majority of major restoration shops use plastic media instead of sand or soda....they're basically tiny plastic balls.