Yes, you can strip powdercoating with regular paint stripper!
I had a small project I needed to strip a bit of regular paint from, so while I had the can out, I thought I'd take care of another project while I was at it.
Last month, I found a Honda 250R Fourtrax frame- in the dump. That frame was missing some sections, likely removed so somebody could do an engine transplant or something.
Somebody that saw the video offered me some pieces of original frame that had been sawed out of a crashed and bent frame. They're almost exactly what I needed, with the only drawback being that the frame had been powdercoated. That's a very common mod for these things, as the powder holds up to the off-road environment quite a bit better.
However, I didn't particularly feel like sandblasting these things for five hours, so I figured I'd chemically strip 'em, like I've done to so many of my machine tools.
Now, normally powdercoating is pretty resistant to paint strippers- not "immune", but definitely more resistant. The trick, then, is to expose the powder to the stripper for a lot longer. I've done this before on things like powdercoated Automag bodies, and it works. The only issue being that since the last time I did try it, they banned the methylene chloride strippers.
As such, I wasn't sure the new "eco friendly" stuff would work- I remember getting a can of some "citrus based" stripper from Homey-Dee, that I'm not sure could have stripped dry-erase marker off of teflon.
So I grabbed a quart from HD- some "non-methyene-chloride" formula- and a disposable tinfoil baking pan from Wally World.
The big trick for all of this is to seal- at least partially- the tub, so the stripper doesn't dry out, and better still, holds the fumes in. The baking pans came with thin plastic lids, that I didn't think would withstand the stripper for long, but I figured it was worth a shot.
So, the first three bits, thoroughly soaked and slathered, and covered in the pan.
Turns out, the lid lasted for one night.
So I just covered the pan with a chunk of thin sheetmetal- it doesn't have to be airtight, just closed enough to keep the stripper from drying out, or filling the room with nasty fumes.
After the third day, this is what it looked like:
(You can see the scrap steel 'lid' at the bottom of the pic.)
That ugly mess peeled right off, actually showing that the frame had been first powdercoated silver. Not sure if that was a previous color, a "primer" color, or a shiny base to make the orange final coat "pop" more. Either way, it all came off nicely.
I still had to use a brush to scrub off some smut, and rinsed them thoroughly in warm water with another brush, but they came out perfectly:
Now, I can carefully grind off the motor mount tabs (which was really what I needed) and get them ready to weld back on the frame, whenever I can get around to that.
For a paintball gun, if it's steel like an Automag or Ranger body, stripping this way should be easy- and something like a brass-bristle toothbrush will help a lot getting the last of it off.
For something anodized, you'll want to be a lot more careful scraping, to try and preserve the anodized surface as best you can. Even if you plan to reanodize, you don't want to scratch the surface and have to do a lot of extra work to polish it back out.
I have a paint scraper I've buffed the edge smooth, and I've also used wood slices cut at an angle on the bandsaw, as a non-marring scraper.
And finally, while I haven't tried it personally, I'd wager this would work on things like Cerakote too.
Doc.
I had a small project I needed to strip a bit of regular paint from, so while I had the can out, I thought I'd take care of another project while I was at it.
Last month, I found a Honda 250R Fourtrax frame- in the dump. That frame was missing some sections, likely removed so somebody could do an engine transplant or something.
Somebody that saw the video offered me some pieces of original frame that had been sawed out of a crashed and bent frame. They're almost exactly what I needed, with the only drawback being that the frame had been powdercoated. That's a very common mod for these things, as the powder holds up to the off-road environment quite a bit better.
However, I didn't particularly feel like sandblasting these things for five hours, so I figured I'd chemically strip 'em, like I've done to so many of my machine tools.
Now, normally powdercoating is pretty resistant to paint strippers- not "immune", but definitely more resistant. The trick, then, is to expose the powder to the stripper for a lot longer. I've done this before on things like powdercoated Automag bodies, and it works. The only issue being that since the last time I did try it, they banned the methylene chloride strippers.
As such, I wasn't sure the new "eco friendly" stuff would work- I remember getting a can of some "citrus based" stripper from Homey-Dee, that I'm not sure could have stripped dry-erase marker off of teflon.
So I grabbed a quart from HD- some "non-methyene-chloride" formula- and a disposable tinfoil baking pan from Wally World.
The big trick for all of this is to seal- at least partially- the tub, so the stripper doesn't dry out, and better still, holds the fumes in. The baking pans came with thin plastic lids, that I didn't think would withstand the stripper for long, but I figured it was worth a shot.
So, the first three bits, thoroughly soaked and slathered, and covered in the pan.
Turns out, the lid lasted for one night.
So I just covered the pan with a chunk of thin sheetmetal- it doesn't have to be airtight, just closed enough to keep the stripper from drying out, or filling the room with nasty fumes.
After the third day, this is what it looked like:
(You can see the scrap steel 'lid' at the bottom of the pic.)
That ugly mess peeled right off, actually showing that the frame had been first powdercoated silver. Not sure if that was a previous color, a "primer" color, or a shiny base to make the orange final coat "pop" more. Either way, it all came off nicely.
I still had to use a brush to scrub off some smut, and rinsed them thoroughly in warm water with another brush, but they came out perfectly:
Now, I can carefully grind off the motor mount tabs (which was really what I needed) and get them ready to weld back on the frame, whenever I can get around to that.
For a paintball gun, if it's steel like an Automag or Ranger body, stripping this way should be easy- and something like a brass-bristle toothbrush will help a lot getting the last of it off.
For something anodized, you'll want to be a lot more careful scraping, to try and preserve the anodized surface as best you can. Even if you plan to reanodize, you don't want to scratch the surface and have to do a lot of extra work to polish it back out.
I have a paint scraper I've buffed the edge smooth, and I've also used wood slices cut at an angle on the bandsaw, as a non-marring scraper.
And finally, while I haven't tried it personally, I'd wager this would work on things like Cerakote too.
Doc.
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