O.K....not that kind of stripper..I have an 80 , and i'm wanting to strip the paint off. I can see that whom ever had the vette before me...had it primed and painted over the original paint.So, two layers of primer, and two layers of paint.I used a metal striper to remove all the paint from the trim. That worked good. On the can it said not to use on fiberglass. I can understand this ..as fiberglass is part resin. The front and rear are urathane...so what could i use for that ? Any help would be great ! Thanks

I've seen a sripper for fiberglass advertized in Ecklers and MidAtlantic Corvettes catalogs.Try calling a locaL boat shop too.

I sripped the paint off my 71 about 10 years ago. What a mess! They make a fiberglass paint stripper for boats and I used that. I found it at the auto supply store, but I was in Florida then. If your auto supply store doesn't have it try a marine shop. Let me know if you have any more questions. I have a bunch of pictures if you want to see what it looked like.

Thanks ya'll. I do have a boat shop just down the road , and i well try them. I know it well probly be a mess...but it has to be done.Ya know about the urethane front and back. Should i use something different for those? After you put it on the paint , did it come off easy? Pics would be cool Rodbender.

|UPDATED|10/28/2003 6:25:00 AM|/UPDATED|

If you go to a paint supply store ask for Aircraft Stripper, it is water soluable. It will remove the paint and primer, but not the gel coat. This is important! It is messy, but it will make for a better paint job. It is also something you can do yourself and save tons of money. The other important thing to do is to rinse the car often during the process. This will keep the stripper from getting into the fiberglass. Finally, let the car sit in the hot sun for a week or more to make absolutely sure the chemicals have all evaporated. If there are any chemicals still embedded in the glass the new paint will blister about a week later.

Chemical strippers are the only way to go if the paint you currently have is laquer checked. Even if you sand prime and block the car smooth the laquer checking will telegraph through in about six months.



Alex

I talked to a man at a fiberglass shop yesterday , and he proceeds to tell me that there is no way to hurt gellcoat. I'm not sure if i beleve that ! Thanks for the heads up and info y'all. Aircraft stripper...hummm....sounds right , thanks again.

Yes, don't do what the previous owner of my 75 did....Just sanded it all off. He never heard of gell coat. I got a lot of work to do!

I started stripping my car today. I am using an awesome product. spray on with a mister and 5 minutes later you see gealcoat. You nuetralize it after with some water. The stuff is great. The name has slipped me now though

Had my '73 repainted two years ago. The body shop guy that did it (30+ years in the business and over two dozen Vette jobs) said he wouldn't get near a Vette with any type of stripper, especially on older models. Back then, there was an extensive use of bonding strips to hold the fiberglass sections together. If the stripper gets into the strips, he said it could come out after painting and would cause delamination. The only remedy at that point would be re-painting. My car was "media blasted" with plastic pellets to get rid of the old paint. This was followed by a good hand sanding to smooth out the surface and remove any minor paint left. Primer, sanding, three coats of orange, sanding, two coats of yellow pearl, sanding, then two coats of clearcoat with two sandings. By the way, with some minor body repair the total cost was $4,600.00. it was done as a "winter" project and took eight months. Eleven car shows and eleven trophies later, it sure seems like this guy knew what he was talking about. Too bad he retired. The cost of the media blasting was $900.