Do you guys have any ideas on what the best way is to get a car back to bare metal.
Is it best to dip, blast or sand ??
whats best value for money without spending hours behind a grinder. What stops the rust from coming back??
would it be adviseable to gal dip the body before painting after all the rust is cut out..throw up your ideas....

i do sandblasting it gets rid of rust, paint and bog very easily but i wouldnt advise getting a datto blasted unless you are for sure they know EXACTLY what they are doing cause it will cost unesacary money to repair the damage they caused if they do it wrong
if you do blast it get them to not do the roof or bonnet they will distort and warp
thats my advise

My experience is. If you really want to bare metal it to paint strip it Messy but in the case of a datto a lot gentler a lot less to repair compared to sand blasting. You just have to light sand it it at the end say dry 120 grade but you will need to anyway to remove excess and to do repairs. 2 things with sandblasting If you don't know the person doing it and they don't have a proven reputation Don't go there. Even if they do have a proven reputation Like the previous member said steer clear of all the Horizontals especially the roof.But i say dont go there Period. Lastly with sand blasting you have to have all the gear to go on with it Like etch primer or sealer cause that little baby will start to rust the minute it leaves the blaster. For Paint stripping Use Camstrip its in a 4 litre screw top tin and is a Gold tin mainly. You get it at Panel Shop suppliers and you can scratch up the panels a bit with a good thick blade but not to rough. Dipping never done it but its very expensive. We always either Dry sand with Orbital and start coarse say 60 or 80 grid paper and do panel by panel overlapping sos not to create more work. Same with Paint stripping but always start on the roof. The thing is with most the old cars you cant beat the old primers on there they were oxide based and we find if we don't need to go bare metal we don't only in very extreme cases like crows feet or moisture under the previous paint or repairs etc. Bare metal resprays are in my experience over rated and we try to avoid them. People have this idea that its the best way to go i beg to differ from experience not theory. Many years working in panel shops Not qualified but done a lot of the hack work for Panel shops and done a lot of my own cars. Hope that helps you. If i left anything out its because I'm Human well last time i checked.

sand blasting can be harsh and damage panels with the pressure. Dipping remove to much paint in place you will repaint like factory and it just gives somewhere new for rust to start. But there is soda blasting which is like sand blasting but softer and only get done what have to don't go overboard. I've seen some panels after and they looked smooth.

hey champ
i got my 1200 ute fully SODA BLASTED
inside and out, the bay & underneath for $600 in dubbo, it removes paint with no prob's,
it will NOT warp delicate metal surfaces like paneling, plastic nor fibreglass,.......
you can't beat it, it gets into all those nooks & fannys....OOPS hehe!!

"what a fantastic job".
ive have struts, diff, leafs ETC done aswell,
nuts and bolts are been zinc plated

www.sodablast.com.au
sodablastdubbo@optusnet.com.au

if you ring jame tell him that rod from nyngan sent you

I think the only safe way is to use paint stripper or to sand. Sandblasting can warp panels as everyone will be [and has been] lightning fast to point out and will remove some thickness from your panels, and to begin with, 1200s are not made from the thickest of sheetmetals.

Dipping removes factory rust proofing from places that are hard to re-rustproof completely, especially inside your chassis rails/subframe and inside the cowl, and even if you do rustproof these areas there may be some acid residue that will render your efforts useless.
It's one of those occasions where it's better to do things the harder way... [I think]

I know you don't want to sand,
but I used 2 "strip it" discs from bunnings, cannot remember the exact name, they were a blue steel wool type thing on a grinding disc. Cost me a grand total of $30. If I was going to sand a 1959 Cadillac I might opt for blasting of some sort, but on a Datto there isn't very much to sand. I think I had stripped the entire car back to bare metal in 2 weekends, doing 4 hours a day. That was taking my time too. And sanding isn't as bad as it sounds.

im in the process of doing the same thing to my 2 door. i got a quote to dip a whole car $1200-$1650. i did however paintstrip the whole car and it took about 8 litres of paintstripper and about 3 days non stop, it made the whole car heaps better and for some reason it didnt look so rusty (i think the white paint showed up the orangy rust more hehe). dipping is easyer but expensive but once u have a car down to a rolling shell its not so hard to rust free any areas inside and out. the rust proofer i just bought was $17.00 for a litre and covers the whole car. any areas with alot of surface rust just use one of those plastic paintstripper disks for ur anglegrinder. i did a whole rusty as roof (i mean thick surface rust all over) in about a hour. unless u have alot of money to waste just get as many mates as u can with scrapers and paintstrip it.

one of my Grandfathers mates is an old school panel beater/spray painter all he uses to strip paint off cars is oven cleaner, has to have caustic soda in it, thats all he does and for a round $3 a can, probably cost $30 for a 1200 to be completly stripped.

The problem with blasting is the sand, or what ever they use, it gets every where! in the sills all through the interior you'll be forever getting it out! and it promotes rust if not fully removed.

Just got my ute back form Yarra Valley Blasters (Victoria).
I got my ute sand blasted due to surface rust. The Guy does a sensational job of blasting and cleaning.
One thing to watch out for when blasting a little datto is the thickness of the steel. 1200's have quite thin steel compared to what alot of so called blasting company's are used to. It does heat the steel and will warp the panels if not done right.

My advise would be to shop around to find a good company and pay a bit more if you have to.