DaleB
Well Known Member
Since we've had a very entertaining thread about Hookers, I thought I'd post my experience with a couple of strippers too.
So I have an airplane with lots of paint that will need to be removed before it can be re-painted. When I say "lots", I am not kidding. There appears to have been no real surface preparation or priming done, just some paint sprayed on rather thickly. It seems to be an automotive base/clear of some sort. The builder apparently had someone do it who is perhaps not the best painter in the country.
Since I'd like to minimize the mess and toxicity, I decided to try a couple of non methylene chloride strippers. I've had excellent success with Citristrip on many surfaces with stain, varnish, spray paint, etc. And Spruce sells some stuff called PTS-202 that claims to remove epoxy and urethane paint effortlessly. I even found a Youtube video of it being used to strip a Caravan or something. Pretty impressive, that one was.
So I brought the spinner home and brushed one side heavily with Citristrip and one with PTS-202. A couple of hours later there was no indication of any change in the condition of the paint. Since it's pretty heavy paint, I gave it another heavy brush coat of each. That was around 11 PM last night.
This morning there was no apparent change. None. The paint was still smooth and stuck down as well as before. I tested the paint with a razor blade; it's relatively soft, about like low density polyethylene. I can peeled off the clear coat and outer layer of color in thin strips like a carrot, but the paint is in no way loose or coming off. I gave it another very thick coat of PTS-202 on that side, and left the Citristrip side alone. With no further change by around 5 PM, I hit it with PTS-202 again.
The short story is... I don't know what this thing was painted with, but neither stripper is really doing squat. I don't know what PTS-202 WILL work on, but it sure as heck won't work on this stuff. I guess I'll have to resort to one of the nastier strippers to get the job done.
Pretty disappointing, really. I had hope for the Citristrip but didn't really expect it to work. The PTS-202, though, is advertised as "intended to remove the most resilient coatings from metal and composite surfaces", specifically claiming to remove "Urethanes, Epoxies and most other high performance finishes". Maybe cheap automotive finishes are not high performance enough for it to work on them.
So I have an airplane with lots of paint that will need to be removed before it can be re-painted. When I say "lots", I am not kidding. There appears to have been no real surface preparation or priming done, just some paint sprayed on rather thickly. It seems to be an automotive base/clear of some sort. The builder apparently had someone do it who is perhaps not the best painter in the country.
Since I'd like to minimize the mess and toxicity, I decided to try a couple of non methylene chloride strippers. I've had excellent success with Citristrip on many surfaces with stain, varnish, spray paint, etc. And Spruce sells some stuff called PTS-202 that claims to remove epoxy and urethane paint effortlessly. I even found a Youtube video of it being used to strip a Caravan or something. Pretty impressive, that one was.
So I brought the spinner home and brushed one side heavily with Citristrip and one with PTS-202. A couple of hours later there was no indication of any change in the condition of the paint. Since it's pretty heavy paint, I gave it another heavy brush coat of each. That was around 11 PM last night.
This morning there was no apparent change. None. The paint was still smooth and stuck down as well as before. I tested the paint with a razor blade; it's relatively soft, about like low density polyethylene. I can peeled off the clear coat and outer layer of color in thin strips like a carrot, but the paint is in no way loose or coming off. I gave it another very thick coat of PTS-202 on that side, and left the Citristrip side alone. With no further change by around 5 PM, I hit it with PTS-202 again.
The short story is... I don't know what this thing was painted with, but neither stripper is really doing squat. I don't know what PTS-202 WILL work on, but it sure as heck won't work on this stuff. I guess I'll have to resort to one of the nastier strippers to get the job done.
Pretty disappointing, really. I had hope for the Citristrip but didn't really expect it to work. The PTS-202, though, is advertised as "intended to remove the most resilient coatings from metal and composite surfaces", specifically claiming to remove "Urethanes, Epoxies and most other high performance finishes". Maybe cheap automotive finishes are not high performance enough for it to work on them.