Blast, anti-rust then epoxy - or just blast then epoxy?
 

Like the title says.. I have one shop who wants to blast, anti-rust coat (what is this?) and then epoxy prime my 68 Mustang coupe but they are really far away. I found a semi-local place that wants to just blast then epoxy prime the car. Am I missing some important step by not doing the anti-rust step?

Thanks
Jeff

blast, clean with metal prep (wax grease remover), epoxy prime

they probably want to just do an acid wash on it which i would recommend. but its nothing more than wiping some chemical on the car to soak into pits and ensure the metal is clean. im hoping they wouldnt try to charge too much for that step.. you can always just ask them to explain..

The price is about the same for both places except the one that mentioned the metal prep is 300 miles away :(

its not going to hurt to blast it, blow it off and epoxy it by any means. the acid just helps if the car will be sitting around after blasting or if there were a lot of pits and stuff. if you trust the closer guy its your call. i personally wouldnt do 600 miles worth the driving

Just talked to the closer place and they do perform some kind of wipe-down or wax/grease removing step before they epoxy.

The guy on the phone is very nice but I think he's new there and is more of a sales guy. He couldn't tell me exactly what media they use to blast it but he did say that he would find out and call me back in the morning.

Jeff

And before using acid wash make sure the epoxy primer manufacture is ok with this. Some are not. I dont think its needed with the epoxies out now. JR

You are correct. In checking around, SPI wants NO acid/metal treatment at all applied to the metal before their primer.

I've decided to do some of the sheetmetal before I blast and prime it. I mean, it's obvious that it needs a floor and a few other parts - why not do those now so that I wont be screwing with the epoxy in so many areas. I figure if I epoxy now, I'll be replacing 15-20% of the metal that got primed - and I'll just have to prime that again :)

Just my 2 cents worth ---

It's SOOOOOOOOO nice to work on a CLEAN freshly EP'd car.... and it doesn't take much work to get the primered areas clean for welding....

Working with nasty rusted metal is just not fun... and the blasting might "expose" areas to you that need more extensive work than you might have thought...

It ain't that hard to EP over your new work...

Just my "for what it's worth"... is all.

Much depends on your time frame... you can just leave it "bare" -- it's amazing but they don't rust up that quickly and a scotchbrite cleans 'em right up... do your major work (quickly) and then get her EP'd...

I'm sure you're right. My problem is, I'm going to pay someone to do the blasting and priming. The place I'm taking it charges one price to do the whole car. At this point, I've spent some of my budget on a new MIG and associated tools. I have some time before the car fund grows to the point of blasting the car, so I'll use the time to do a few of the obvious repairs. Like you suggest, I expect to find other areas that require repair after the blasting as well.

The place that's going blast the car for me requires the car to be on a body cart, so I'll use the new mig to build that as well.

Takes time and money... I have more time than money and I don't have much time :)