The restoration continues…

 

 

 

OK, I know I said 7 months ago that it would be 2 weeks until the next update! Hopefully you'll find it was worth the wait.

 

When I last updated the site, I was debating whether to galvanise my frame or not, while continuing to cut big rusty chunks out of the front of the frame. I was also trying to figure out the best way to strip the old epoxy from my frame, on both the inside and outside surfaces.

 

I finally did decide to galvanise the frame, which meant I had to remove every bit of the original epoxy paint from the frame, as it would not galvanise properly with any of the paint still intact.

 

I did find a way of chemically stripping the frame by submerging it in industrial paint stripper for 8 hours. This worked on the front of the frame, as this was the only part which would fit in the paint stripping tank.

 

The 3 of us (Aaron, Shane and I) working on our frame restorations paid for a custom tank to be built, which would be capable of holding half a DeLorean frame standing on end. The idea was we would strip the front half of the frame first, followed by the rear half. Unfortunately, after the tank was built, the guy who owned the paint stripping business recalculated the cost of the extra liquid he would need to fill this tank. It pushed the cost of using this process for stripping our frames way up, and so we decided to cut our losses with the tank and find alternative methods to stripping the epoxy from the frame.

 

Sandblasting the entire frame works - but it is very labour intensive and expensive. I wanted to find a way to strip as much of the epoxy off myself, to minimise the amount of sandblasting that would be needed.

 

I found 2 methods that worked - using a heat gun and paint scraper, or using Nitromors Automotive Paint Stripper. Both worked well, but take time.

 

These 2 methods will be shown in the following pages...