New Hampshire CMP Barn 2011- 2012 HUP Overhaul

[Alex Blair (RIP)]

Originally Posted by Phil Waterman

Hi All

What do these two products have in common?


They both remove paint and strangely the one on the right seems to actually work better, is cheaper, environmentally more friendly. Washing soda has come up over the years many times on MLU for various reasons such as Restoration Tip: Electrolysis Derusting, degreaser etc.

Well it was in the process of using it as a degreaser that its paint removing characteristics came out. Like with any degreaser they work better if the the part, grease and liquid are hot. So one day I throw bunch of grease small parts into an old electric fry pan with 1/2 cup of washing soda and gallon of water and left the whole thing to simmer for awhile while I did something else. The parts had a thick layer of grease on top of many layers of paint. When I pulled a part out of the simmering stew and when at it with a small wire brush not only did the grease come off but the paint as well.

The pictures below show parts simmering, what they look like as removed and after a few minutes with a wire brush.

Then spraying the parts with a good water based degreaser and washing the parts with hot water leaves them ready to paint.

Tomorrow I'm going to try hitting them with hot water pressure spray see if that will clean small parts which are hard to wire brush.

If that works got to find a bigger boiling tank.

As to the Aircraft Coating Remover, found that this tends to only remove one layer of paint at a time.

Comments and suggestions please.

Cheers Phil

Phil..
I use that for oven cleaner also..The ingredient that is doing all the heavy lifting is sodium carbonate...sodium BI-carbonate will make you burp and will clean battery terminals but the sodium carbonate is the big lifter in Grandmas washing soda..

[Bob Carriere]

.....still allows you in the kitchen unsupervised...?

Will call you......

Bob

[Stew Robertson]

Just add your battery charger and it will also get rid of the rust
Good for everything
Stew

[Phil Waterman]

Hi Stew

I have used washing soda in the past with power supply to derust parts works pretty good.

But using washing soda hot at a higher concentration does a pretty good job of softening multilayer of paint and clearing some of the rust. Was reminded this morning that if you let paint on a part cool off and dry out the paint gets surprisingly hard again.

Really should do some controlled experiments to see what concentrations, at what temperature work best. But that will have to wait until I have the HUP back together. Right now my priority is to gets those last bits that I didn't clean when disassembling cleaned and repainted so they can go back on the truck.

Cheers Phil

[Stew Robertson]

Hi Phil
I have a 5 and a half foot x five foot high tank that I use and then use my welder for the power supply with 2 quarts of soda from Home depot
and I can remove rust, paint , and what ever else is there in a few hours.
Just make sure the connections are right or your steel ages and disappears into rust. For cleaning the roofs on the cabs I just lay down a plastic sheet , set up some blocks around it and fill with water ( like a mini pool) and Soda and the welder and it cleans them up real quick
All you need to do is hose the parts down and brush them off
It has worked for me for a lot of years
Stew