Originally Posted by
Cablestein
Hi
I have a couple of old steel road frames I'd like to re-paint. A friend has an air compressor and airbrush kit that he'll lend me.
I've started manually sanding one frame with 80 grit sandpaper and a small wire brush for tight spots. Oh man does it take a long time! Basically each length of tube takes an hour to completely sand down to bare metal. Each dropout takes about one and a half hours. Each small boss (for fenders, etc) takes about half an hour. In grand total I can see myself spending 12 hours sand-papering one frame.
Now I can see why sandblasting is so effective!!!
Other than sandblasting, what's the best alternative to manual sanding?
Using an electric palm sander?
Maybe sanding/grinding wheel attachments on a standard drill?
I started stripping down an old Peugeot frame and the plan was to level out scratches and remove rust. Once I discovered that there was surface rust under the cracking paint, likely on 90% of the frame, I realized I will need to cut my sanding time down. I used my orbital palm sander with 100 grit and had some decent results in minutes. Plan on doing more sanding today. I do have a bottle of citri stripper paint remover but have no experience with it however may end up using it in tight spots.
