Stripping a shell with fire...
 

I was talking to a fella that told me of a process a company in Ohio/Indiana uses to strip cars. They put the shell in a big oven, and heat it to whatever temp incenerates the paint and tar. Anybody used this process before, or have more information on it? I've got a shell I need stripped to bare metal and I'm afraid to find out how much it would cost to blast the thing (and acid dipping is illegal).

Seems like it would be hot shit <rimshot>... no more killing yourself scraping out the sound deadening and "undercarriage" BS.

TIA.

i think acid dipping is easier and better

Read my post.

Really Lite Rex
 

Chris!! Talk to the local drag racers. This is very common with them. If you acid diped it, who would know? DICK.

Precisely, but this is going to be a car that kicks everybody's ass, so it needs to be fully legal (at least stuff that can't be unbolted.... :cool: ).

I would worry about the metal shrinking and expanding under extreme heat. Steel will warp and change shape at high temps. If your using it as a shell for a tube chassis drag car then it would not be a problem, but I would not use a car/shell that had been burned for anything but scrap metal. Acid dipping is illegal in most states so media(not sand) blasting is the best and most economical in my opinion. Also if time is not an issue the tar and paint can be removed the old fashioned way by hand. this by far the most common way it is done. good luck

If you find out who does this let me know. This area is local for me and I'm looking to get a tub stripped also.

Really Striped
 

Get a copy of National Dragster (NHRA). Look in the back at the ads. I know the car restorers use a chemical strip as shown on the tv. I saw an entire 57 Chev dipped into ONE tank and striped.

I was able to find this:
http://www.custompowdercoating.com/burnoff.html

Unforunately their oven is a little small.

I'm interested as well, if you can find anymore info....

So the tub would still need to be bead blasted?

Oh shit the EP project is born.;) I guess I helped light the fire.

I agree with Tims, I'm not sure I would want to cook my car, might make that 20+ year old car brittle, but again I'm no metalurgist. Nor can I even spell it.:)

Unfortunately the only metalurgist I know has passed away, so I'll have to hope my thread on one of 3 boards nets somebody qualified to give me a real answer.

Chris - if you want to reduce weight, that's the way it seems. I've also heard from a vintage car builder that some of the chemical dippers use a burn off oven before they dip the tub.

I guess if I don't hear back from some of the companies I've contacted by tomorrow afternoon I'll start calling the local blasting places.

PS - Paul, I'll blame you if I go broke building and racing this thing. ;)

900 degrees is pretty friggin' hot. If you wanted to really pursue this method, then I would have a piece of the chassis analyzed so you know what kind of steel it is and how much heat it can take before it is weakened.
Why not just pour brake fluid all over the car. If anyone challenges you, just claim it was an "industrial accident". ;)

Judging by the little information I've found, I'll be chemically stripping it myself and attacking it with the DA. Looks like I'll still get to do the tar the "old fashioned way"... :mad:

Oh well, I've got plenty of time. It'll be a couple months before I have the flares and splitter made, so it's less time for the bare metal to rust. ;)

dood i got the tar offa my car(interior) yesterday with 3 friends...in 1:45~2hours with dry ice a hammer and BIGass flatheaded chizzle thingy.....lol dood dry ice roxored! and it was a 30lb wieght reduction just in the interior alone...(i used a digital scale)

dry ice = 10bucks(1buck a lb)

Yeah, dry ice is the shit. Found that out a while ago.

But not having to do anything is a lot better! :bigthumb:

Ya know...
I used Dry Ice on several cars I have done that with... BUT.. I found an alternative that is TONS faster.


Air chisel. YEP.. the little air chisel that you get when you buy the cheapy air tool kit.. that you never use? YEP thats it.
I put in a standard generic chisel blade a month or so so I could rip out some sound deadening in the ITA car to mount the brake bias.. and Ziiiiiiip. I had about a 1.5 foot long by 4 inch wide strip GONE.
Soo I took about 1.5-2 minutes and ripped the ENTIRE passenger footwell/floor/tunnel/underseat area.

Course I needed to take about 10 minutes to pick up all the pieces.
A Little degreaser/tar-remover on a rag.. a few wipes and Voila.. clean floor.

I say take to a Soda Blaster

http://www.sodablasting.com/id4.htm

this stuff rocks!!

Chris- There is a company here local in Atlanta that acid dipped my RX for 200 dollars. Now...let me explain. I got the car back and there were still small bits of the tar on the floorboards and such... I ended up taking a paint scraper and getting it all out... However this task as not that hard because I am sure it was weakned by the dipping. If anyone every challenged you...say you took the time and stripped it... in another state....someone else did it...who cares..sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do!

I did a google search for "burn-off ovens" and found a lot of companies that sell them. I wouldn't hesitate putting a chassis into one. But of course, you'd have to find someone with an oven big enough to fit your car in it.

In Canada I had my car dipped in an alkalyne bath for about $700. No metal was removed, so it should be 100% legal. When I got the car back there were a few tiny bits of seam sealer here and there, but 99.9% of the car was stripped down to a greeny galvanizing coating on the bare metal. By far the best method to get a car ready for racing.

-Trent

I wouldn't heat the chassis hot enough to take off the paint. I'm pretty sure our cars are made with heat treated sheet metal and heting it up enough to burn off the paint would anneal the sheet metal. The Redi-Strip process is what I would do if I were a bit richer than I am. As it stands I took all the sound deadening material out of the car the hard way. But the interior floor is done and painted so no worries. I would like to have the bottom of the car cleaner, but I also don't want to take the car completely apart so the undercarriage stays ugly. As far as weight is concerned though I have cut the dash down to only the instrument cluster. I shoudl take pictures so it's clear what I've done.

USE DRY ICE - lots of it but wear cryo gloves and be fully covered
Leave for at least 40mins until most of the ice has vapourised
Tap shell with hammer and everything flakes off, including rubberised epoxies.
Have the shell on a tarpaulin or like and then its easier to clear up.
I took one whole domestic refuse bin (20gal) full of material off the car.
Cost me £20 (15$) plus 3hrs.

A friend of mine that does body work and has worked in a high end street rod shop says there's a place that dips in Evansville, IN which is only about an hour up the road from me. He's working on getting me the contact info. Since my ITS car needs body work and a repaint this year anyway I think I'll just dip the whole thing and start fresh if the cost is not outrageous.