Today there are a number of methods used to strip paint from cars, boats, planes and other equipment. Some applications are better suited than others, depending on what it is you are stripping and what the desired results need to be. Let’s look at two modern-day methods for stripping the paint off cars and determine which is the best overall. The methods we will be looking at are:
- Soda Blasting
- Garnet Abrasive Blasting
What Is Soda Blasting?
In this process Sodium Bicarbonate is blasted against a surface using compressed air. It is designed to be a much milder form of cleaning a surface or stripping paint than sandblasting. It has a number of uses – particularly for cleaning surfaces – and is also often used in the spray painting and custom painting industry. In reality, though, it is more effective for cleaning graffiti off walls and things like that than it is for stripping back the paint on a car to get it ready for a repaint.
What Is Garnet Abrasive Blasting?
For starters, garnet meets all the Occupational Health & Safety requirements, is recyclable and is a cost-effective alternative to using silica sand. Garnet also comes in a variety of grain sizes, enabling garnet blasting to be done with different grades to suit the job at hand. Compressed air is used to propel the grains of garnet onto the surface to be cleaned or stripped. As it’s very abrasive it is ideal for removing both paint and rust from metal surfaces such as the body of a car. It is popular in the spray painting, custom painting and boat painting industries.
Soda Blasting VS Garnet Abrasive Blasting
Both of these are alternatives to actual sandblasting, which can leave behind a lot of dust. Soda blasting tends to be a more gentle way of cleaning surfaces, but doesn’t really cut it when it comes to stripping both the paint AND rust off cars. While it can be effective as a paint stripper, it really fails to deliver results when trying to remove rust and corrosion.
This is one major area where blasting with garnet wins hands down. Because it comes in a variety of grades, it is both powerful enough and abrasive enough to strip the rust and corrosion from a car body as well as the paint.
At Flight Marine We Use And Recommend Garnet Abrasive Blasting
With locations on both Brisbane and the Gold Coast, flight marine are spray painting specialists; whether it be for a car, a boat or even a plane. We prefer garnet blasting over soda blasting because of its versatility and overall effectiveness. With garnet we can strip both the paint and rust from your car, making it ready for a repaint. And with our fine grade of garnet abrasive it is gentle enough to remove the paint from the fibreglass hull of a boat without any risk of damage to the underlying surface.
