Soda blasting side covers and tail? (76 KZ900)

I need to strip a rattle can paint job plus the original paint off the side covers and tail. Painters have told me not to use chemical on the plastic parts as it can retain some of the chemical and leech out later. I am way too lazy to sand all this stuff by hand.

I sent pictures to a local blasting company (that their web site says they do soda blasting) for a quote.
They replied (in part) with “Our media is much too aggressive for plastics”. I ordered a soda blasting kit from Eastwood, but then started wondering if I’m going to screw these parts up.

Anyone ever soda blasted the plastic parts?

You could try, at a fairly low pressure, but move off the area as soon as you get near the plastic. And no matter what, you are going to have to do a fair bit of hand sanding to assure the surface is properly level before priming.

I think you're going to find that any "blasting" option may be detrimental to the plastic under the paint.

If you've already ordered a kit of some kind, then you could try it out with the softest/kindest media you can on some piece of plastic unseen or replaceable but generally, polymers made over 30 years ago will be "crumbly" once blasted. Hairline cracks are probably already present in the plastic and blasting only magnifies this.

I don't know why you think media blasting is somehow easier than simply hand sanding?
Unless you have a blasting cabinet, you'll spend way more time on clean-up and washing the media off yourself :dry:

If your real concern is the rattle can paint. You can sand the panels smooth and apply a quality sealer to seal-out the rattle can from reacting with your new paint.

I wouldn't do it. Just take off the loose stuff and feather out the edges. My duck tail has seem many paintings over the last 40 years. No substitute for hard work unless you buy new.
Steve

I would sand it slightly to get rid of lose paint and use 2 component epoxy primer

Well I did it. The Soda was working but was taking forever. So I switched to the 40/70 glass bead. That was much faster and didn’t leave the finish much (if any) rougher than the soda. I got both side covers done and half the tail before I ran out of both glass bead and soda. I went to HF and got some 80 grit glass bead, I’ll see how that works. Hopefully it works as well on the tank; it should.

There was no danger of blowing through the plastic; it’s just not that aggressive. The brown base coat (I assume) is embedded in the plastic and I didn’t even take that completely off.

At first I thought I would sand this to smooth it down a little. But I’m being told I need to spray the plastic with some adhesion promoter prior to priming. So I’m wondering if between that and the primer; if I really need to?

Some folks reportedly soak non-metal parts in brake fluid to remove the paint, supposedly without harming the part.

A zip-loc bag might prove useful.

Good Fortune!

Any photos to show what youre up to?

davido wrote: Any photos to show what youre up to?

Sure here's a before pic of the side cover before blasting.:


The plastic pieces after blasting:

Close-up showing finish:

I was going to blast the tank also, but it was taking a lot of glass bead. The area around the gas cap was blasted and had a nice finish. But to save on media I’m going to try some stripper I had on hand to see if I can get most of it off and then blast.

Looks good. Did you use soda or glass bead?

When blasting the tank be sure to seal up all the various openings really good. I glass blasted a tank one time and media got inside the tank unknown to me until some miles later when the bike was running like crap and I found a small pile in the bottom of each float bowl.

Not that you asked, but I've had good results using Transtar Epoxy primer on my parts prior to topcoating. Good stuff and relatively cheap. It seems to behave very similarly to PPG DP Epoxy which is about double the cost.

Nessism wrote: Looks good. Did you use soda or glass bead?

Thanks, I used both. I bought a starter kit from Eastwood that had 10 pounds of soda and 10 pounds of 40/70 glass bead. The soda worked but was nowhere near as fast as the glass bead, and I couldn’t tell the difference in the finish; so glass bead it is.

The tank was a different story. The glass bead took the rattle can paint off pretty quick, but it was taking a lot more time for the original paint. Since I’m not using a cabinet, I could see another trip to HF for more glass bead. So I decided to use some stripper I had. It’s nothing to brag about either after two coats, so I put another coat on and sealed it in a garbage bag; I’ll check it tomorrow. I didn’t see aircraft stripper locally so I may to see what else I can find.

Nessism wrote: Not that you asked, but I've had good results using Transtar Epoxy primer on my parts prior to topcoating. Good stuff and relatively cheap. It seems to behave very similarly to PPG DP Epoxy which is about double the cost.

Yeah, I’m still a little confused on what to use. If you take a look at my last post in this thread you will see. Seems some of that stuff doesn’t come in small quantities and PPG costs a bunch; so I may rethink the original color idea. I’m still waiting for info. So any ideas are appreciated.
www.kzrider.com/forum/6-paint-a-bodywork...to-a-different-color

I use $80 paper on my rotary sander then 150 then 320. I'll blast the tight areas only.
Steve