A long time ago I painted the spokes of my wheels blue to match pinstripes, which are now long gone. After many different attempts to remove the paint without damaging the Aluminum, I decided to soda blast them. My dad recently started this new business using baking soda to strip metals and concrete. Its just like sand blasting, but without the messy cleanup. The baking soda totally washes away with water.

I stripped all 4 wheels (on the car!) in about 15 minutes.Then hit the car with an air blast to remove most of the soda, then gave it a quick hand wash.

Next week, I'm going to paint the insides black, then polish out the walls and spokes. I'll post pics as I progress.

 

Nice homie! They look good.

 

wow, i like that soda idea, can it run through any media blast gun?

 

I don't think so... The Machine is the size of a car trailer. HUGE compressor, the hose is about 2" dia.

I'll post a pic later... its pretty impressive!

 

how much does it cost to get something like that done?

 

Wow.. i love your car

 

Thanks, Mikey! Its getting there. I can finally say that I'm now working on the small details. Its taken a long time to get to this point...

Hey, folks, here is a pic of my dad air blasting the soda off my car. Also, a pic of the machine (not his, but looks just like it).

I dont have any pics of him stripping the wheels because I had to help.
(we cut the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket to use as a stencil that he shot into. I got lucky, it was a perfect fit for my wheels. The blast would have taken the shine off of the rest of the aluminum that I'd have to rebuff. As it is, I still need to polish them a bit.

 

Soda Blasting costs $130/hour regardless of the job. He was telling me that a fender or hood probably takes about an hour, smaller parts probably 1/4 hour to 1/2 hour. A whole car about 4-5 hours. But when its done, it is so clean its ready for paint. Like I said, my wheels took about 15 minutes, so if I would have paid him, it would have only cost me $32.50! not bad!

 

Very, very COOL!

That's a sweet car ya got there.

Rod.