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Will stripper work on powder coat?

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tr8todd

Jedi Knight
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I am restoring a TR8 for a guy. He insisted on having his compomotive wheels striped and powder coated. After 2 months of waiting I just got them back. They look aweful. Don't know what the guy did, but they look fish eyed, and the clear is all ready cracking. I wanted to strip and repaint them originally, but the owner insisted on this route. Can I strip the powder coat with regular paint stripper and repaint. Am I wasteing my time? At this point, I'm realy need to get the car back on it's wheels. I need to build a roll hoop before I put the interior back, and I want the car on level ground before I weld it in. Converts are so flexible that just puting them up on jack stands can cause the doors not to open and close.
 
Strip away!! Gloves and safety eye protection required.

Any decent paint stripper will work on powder coatings.
Use a 1-1/2" wide bristle brush and apply the stripper
in one pass only. No back and forth motion. Once & one way.

Let stand 10 to 15 minutes and wash off gently with
very fine steel wool and a mild detergent. Towel dry
and repeat as needed. Usually twice will get it back
to clean metal.

d
 
Dale may have had better experience, but the answer is no, generally, and of course this is why powder coat is so popular. It is impervious to almost everything.

I use the product sold by Eastwood, DeKote, which is a special stripper for powder coat, $45/gal, but very effective.
 
I had about a pint of leftover stripper in the garage, so I tested the worst of the rims. Clear coat turned to slime almost instantly and the silver slowly bubbled. After about 15 minutes I lightly scraped the paint off with the side of a metal putty knife. 99% came off first application. I will take the one wheel I did and hit it in the sand blast cabinet after it dries. If I like it, I'll do the other four this afternoon once I get some more stripper. Thanks.
 
Todd- Sounds like the PC job was muffed from the get go. I would have taken them back and had them redone. Unless you didn't pay for it in the first place. a good PC'ing shouldn't come off this way. The company I deal with if it isn't perfect they show me and redo it with out a request. They will even change the color or finish on the redo .
 
I've seen wheels locally blasted and PC'd and they looked great. I agree with Don, someone botched the job.

These need to be baked for the proper time in a big oven.
 
Sounds like the good news you were able to clean those wheels fairly easily, and the bad news is someone paid for a powdercoat finish job and either didn't get one or got one of the world's worst.

The only drawback I have heard about having something powdercoated is that if there is even the tiniest pinhole, that pinhole can be a source for rust in the future. But otherwise PC is supposed to be durable as heck and last a long time.
 
angelfj said:
Dale may have had better experience, but the answer is no, generally, and of course this is why powder coat is so popular. It is impervious to almost everything.

I use the product sold by Eastwood, DeKote, which is a special stripper for powder coat, $45/gal, but very effective.
Click to expand...

Odd Frank-

I botched my share of powder coat pieces during my leaning curve.
I use Eastwood powers and gun and never had a problem stripping
it down to metal after botches.

d
 
Four wheels are done, and one I'm still fighting. The first one was straight forward and about what I expected. The second one was a bear, and remains so. There were three coats of powder coat plus the original paint and clear. I assume this was the wheel from the trunk and he just coated over what was there. I am still fighting the original paint on this wheel. The last three were easy. The coating just dissolved and washed away. No muss no fuss. So now I have four really clean wheels and four new tires. I'll have the tires mounted but not set the bead tomorrow. I'll mask the tires, etch prime and paint the wheels later in the week. Once the paint is dry, I'll inflate the wheels and set the beads. Don't know what the deal was with this powder coater, just glad I didn't pay for it. By the time the owner gets done paying for the powder coating and for me to refinish them, he could have bought new wheels and kept the old ones for autoX wheels.
 
They over coated with powder coating. I wouldn't trust the company with my work
 
Its good to hear that the eastwood stuff really works. I have some stuff for my bonneville that I wanted to get chromed but was having a hard time removing the powdercoating.
 
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:]Only if you tip her[/QUOTE]

Or him.......
 
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