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Paint Removal

Tobe1960

Plastic
Joined
Aug 31, 2021
I bought a 1963 monarch 10EE with approximately 7000 coats of paint (just kidding, but several). I have been using some stripper from Home Depot but it's taking forever. I saw a YouTube video where they were using an air needle descaler and it seemed to work great. My concern is will it leave a peened surface finish? Any suggestions / opinions are muchly appreciated.
Dan
 
I've found "Peel-Away #7" will take off multiple layers. For flatter surfaces, or ones curved in one dimension, Peel-Away#1 does a fantastic job, but you need to cover it while it works (they supply a paper and plastic material with the stripper), and that does not cover items with compound curves well.

Most regular paint remover is too safe to do anything. Even the nastiest hardware store glop seems to be good for only one or 2 layers, and leaves you with a really sloppy mess.

Needle descalers make lots of dust, and that machine likely has lead paint. Your choice.
 
Great info Sir! I'm going to look up that stripper online and get some. Don't know about the lead paint but I'm sure I had my share of paint chips off Grandad's radiator. At least that's what my buddies say!
Dan
 
2 choices for cheap yet works paint stripper, spray oven cleaner, or homebrew dry lye (drain cleaner) and cornstarch, the cornstarch is a thickener so it clings to vertical surfaces. My bulk recipe is 4 gallons of water, 1 pound of lye, and 2 lbs of cornstarch, MUST use skin and eye protection, and no children or pets allowed near it. For a 10EE you can probably use a 1/4 of that recipe, best used while still hot.

A needle scaler can be used without denting the metal IF the tips are well rounded from use, and you regulate pressure. I can remove, layer by layer, 2 coats of paint, 1/4" thick layer of drywall compound, another layer of paint, and stop at original layer of calcamine paint, on a concrete wall, and still see pencil drawings from the original contractors.
 
Hot air blower made for stripping paint. Milwaukee makes one. It would be nice if the paint just bubbled off.
Given the vintage, the original paint/primer is going to be tough if you are going down to bare metal.

I would use a stainless brush. Then I would work an hour at a time. That way you won't get burnt out and take short-cuts.
 
Peelaway is a good product, for curved surfaces you can use Sarin wrap or similar. I have recently been using one of the so called eco friendly paint removers with good success - they contain no lye nor methylene chloride. Like the Peelaway they work better for longer if not allowed to dry out. Although claimed not to cause skin burns the active substance is extremely irritating to eyes so should be treated and respected like regular paint remover. I personally would only use a heat gun outdoors, Lead is cumulatively toxic, no point in adding to the stuff that might already in your system.
 
Needle scalers are great. They will obliterate the thick paint in no time. The peening is not really an issue so long as you stay away from precision surfaces, sheet metal, etc. They don't make much dust, the paint mostly breaks off in chips and falls to the floor. They are nothing like sanders or wire wheels. Wear a respirator anyways. And earplugs.

One more thing, regarding surface finish after removal: aren't you planning on using filler anyways? If you go down to bare iron, then you'll be removing the original filler.
 
I used to do a lot of contract work with a Used Machinery dealer in Minneapolis MN and they world paint many machines. Their painter told me he had tried many stripers and stop using them because they were a mess and caustic as heck. He used a carbide tipped hand scraper and just scraped of the paint. Then used an orbital sander and bondo'd it, sanded and wiped it off with lacquer thinner before paining it with epoxy paint./
 
Thank you! That sounds like the way to go. I'll try dulling the edges of my new Harbor Freight descaler and use the homemade concoction for the delicate, hard to get to places.
 
You need aircraft stripper, which will even remove catalyzed polyurethane.

Strongly suggest you tape any seams and strip those areas mechanically. Paint remover in crevices can ruin a paint job later.
 
I used to do a lot of contract work with a Used Machinery dealer in Minneapolis MN and they world paint many machines. Their painter told me he had tried many stripers and stop using them because they were a mess and caustic as heck. He used a carbide tipped hand scraper and just scraped of the paint. Then used an orbital sander and bondo'd it, sanded and wiped it off with lacquer thinner before paining it with epoxy paint./

In the wrong unskilled hands that method can make a lot of extra bondo work. I mean the orbital sander.

Have not been around long enough to witness any paint failures of my own. I have stripped all the way down to bare metal and painted. Have stripped down whatever
is loose but kept original paint and then painted. The results look the same.

The issue I see is that if some of the original paint is left intact because it still adheres to the metal and other areas are removed, will the old paint
eventually lift off with age? Or will a top coat be good enough. I have yet to see a failure of a partial removal but maybe I'm not old enough.:codger:

Especially hard to remove powder coat or old solid paint, like sanding concrete...
 
When I repainted my Deckel mill, I started by stripping to bare iron, then priming and filling. After a while, I got wiser and just removed the loose and bad paint/filler, then primed and filled. If paint or filler are tight and sound, sand them and prime them, don't remove them. It's just making more work.
 
If the paint is still solid I used filler on the damaged parts
Downsize is that it is hard to sand these areas smooth as the paint and the filler sand differently So if I wanted to do a really good job I sprayed the whole machine with a poly filler
That results in a up to 2mm or so layer that you can sand smooth Then primer Then paint

Too laborintensive to do it for a living

Peter
 
Were talking paint removal, not way scraping. No need for a "skilled hand" to scrape paint...LOL If you think so, you have never scraped ways. Also - what you been smoking? LOL some folks want the machine to look like a automobile. I use machine and they get dirty.
 
I used to do a lot of contract work with a Used Machinery dealer in Minneapolis MN and they world paint many machines. Their painter told me he had tried many stripers and stop using them because they were a mess and caustic as heck. He used a carbide tipped hand scraper and just scraped of the paint. Then used an orbital sander and bondo'd it, sanded and wiped it off with lacquer thinner before paining it with epoxy paint./

Agree.

Use DuPont Lacquer and Enamel Cleaner instead of straight lacquer thinner. Doesn't evaporate as fast. But both do the same thing.

Often the paint that is being scraped off is actually better than what it's being replaced with. I mean the old paint and filler that was in good condition but removed for religious beliefs.
 
Often the paint that is being scraped off is actually better than what it's being replaced with. I mean the old paint and filler that was in good condition but removed for religious beliefs.

Religious beliefs? Something like having just sanded the hell out of it?
 
Religious beliefs? Something like having just sanded the hell out of it?

Something like that but I think it goes deeper (pun intended).

I have nothing against it but the belief is that if all the old stuff is removed then the object will be made pure.
I did this a few times. Once was with a heavy tailstock. Getting a cast iron surface to be absolutely clean is difficult.

The exception is when using powder coat. A through bead blast is done to get the adhesion. From a powder coat provider point
of view, sure just clean it all up because we don't want any complaints. If it is really necessary, I don't know.
 
The original paint on 10EEs is usually the best coat. My experience is that if you use a carbide scraper, you can shear off all the top coats leaving most (60%) of the original coat. Then sand, bondo if you want a smooth surface, prime with epoxy primer and paint. If you want to get down to bare metal, its a bit more work, the Monarch paint is a lot tougher, but persistence and a carbide scraper are the way to go. The nice thing about scraping is the lack of mess. Just vacuum up the scrapings. Here are some pictures of a 10EE I painted recently, without removing all the original paint, just the top coats, showing how the scraping progressed:

IMG_1145.jpg

IMG_1191.jpg

IMG_1305.jpg

IMG_1531.jpg

One more thing: after the paint was scraped off, the lathe was scrubbed using oil eater diluted 6:1, using a scotch brite pad, then hosed off (very important, the surfactants in oil eater will prevent paint from adhering) then it was lightly sanded, then masked, primed and painted. Everything removable was removed and painted on the bench then reinstalled.
 
Hi Rich,

He used a carbide tipped hand scraper and just scraped off the paint.

Slightly off-topic.... but this tip came in useful recently, on my surface grinder. I am installing a glass-scale linear encoder (for a DRO) under the saddle, to measure the cross axis. I didn't want to lift off the saddle or drill it, so I epoxied an aluminium mounting block to it. To get a good bond on the underside of the saddle I needed to remove the paint and crust from a small region of the cast iron saddle. A few minutes with a scraper did the trick, followed some coarse sandpaper to provide a scratch pattern.

Cheers,
Bruce
 








 
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