Sandblasting

[nige and Jody]

Howdy all,

I am well into my restoration of a 59 FC special (I have posted the numbers etc before so I won't here) and I am after a bit of advice.  I have been grit blasting a heap of components and it has been working a treat ripping off nearly 50 years of paint and grime.  All of the chrome is in pretty poor condition so as an experiment I grabbed a door handle and ran it through the blaster using the old grit that had almost turned to just powder.  It ripped the chrome off really well, tearing through the old stuff and then through the copper leaving a nice grey metal. 

What I was wondering was if anyone else had done this and was it worth the time, ie was it cheaper to get the stuff re-chromed by doing the stripping and smoothing the pits yourself or am I just wasting my time when the chroming place will charge me the same?  and does grit blasting damage those smaller components like door handles etc.

Cheers

Nige and Jody

[FX1975]

Hello Nige and Jody,

           The preparation of your chrome parts is better left to the guys doing the job as any pitting left from blasting will have to be polished out before chroming, which I have been told by metal polishers is more difficult than preparing an untouched item.  These guys remove rust by running these comonents through chemical baths and polishing, however if you are going to paint these components as in some custom cars rather than rechrome a blasted surface is a good place to start.

             Hope this helps,
                        Frank