Hi Lars,

I am debating what to do about the paint situation on our vette, It looks like
the car has been painted about 3 times, but the current paint job is bubbleing
in quite a few places, "lifting" and some small pieces have actually fell right off!
The paint is overall still nice except the spots that are lifting,bubbleing. It was
painted about 10 years ago. I read your paint tips about stripping and I was wondering if I remove the areas that are bubbling, and refill, or should in this
instance is chemical stripping O.K.?


Thanks for your ongoing support here on the "forum".
SPOKE- :chevy :chevy :chevy :chevy

 

spoke -
As you may know, I'm not a big advocate of chemical stripping of Vettes - I've seen too many bad things happen, even with products that are supposed to be safe for the 'glass. Properly used, I'm sure they can work well. But I recommend sanding as the safest, most goof-proof method to prep a Vette.

If you have 3 layers of paint, and it's lifting in places, you will not obtain a satisfactory finish by spot-sanding and filling. You really need to reduce the thickness of the paint on your car and get rid of the layers that are showing poor adhesion. There is no easy, low-effort way of doing this. You're doomed to a bunch of sanding and prep work to get the car right. The good news is that if it's cracking off, it's probably brittle enough that it will sand pretty quickly without gumming up and plugging your sandpaper. If you load up a long fileboard with some 80-grit paper and start blocking away, you'll cut through the layers pretty darned quick, and you'll end up with a really flat, smooth, blocked out car in the process. Switch over to 150 once you've cut through most of the paint, block out the 80-grit scratches, and then shoot a few coats of fill primer. This will give you a great base to work off of, and will assure that your next paint job will last for a while.
Contact me if you need any assistance.

 

O.K. thats what I'll do! Thanks for the advice as always! SPOKE-