How do I strip power coating?

snow guy

snow guy

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Joined
Mar 10, 2004
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Location
Fairbanks, AK
I've got a tunnel extension that is powder coated that I want to strip to take it down to bare aluminum, I know this stuff is tuff but some kind of stripper must work. I went to two automotive paint stores today and both said they didn't have anything that would touch it. I bought a spray bottle of some stuff called EZ strip and it started to work but I could tell it was going to be a long drawn out process. Any suggestions?
 
If its a factory tunnel you should find an aircraft stripper like zip strip. It works as good as anything you will find. I have done about 10 tunnels to date.
 
I am currently struggling with the same thing on an entire Ekholm tunnel. The factory Yamaha tunnels and extensions are painted not powder coated so there is no comparison. I bought the industrial strength stuff from Zip Strip and it does work, but very slowly. I have heard great things about the Powder Coat stripper from Eastman but it was too cost prohibitive for my whole tunnel (you need to submerse the parts). I looked around the area here for a chemical company that had a bath big enough to take my whole tunnel but had no luck and I really didn't want to pay to ship this thing again. From what I have read, the most effective ways to remove it are to cook it off in a high temp oven, dip it it a high temp solution, or sand blast. I have decided to work the running board coolers and corners with the high grade paint stripper and do the rest with a DA sander as I am going to polish the tunnel anyway. Good luck!
 
Fastest way is to burn it off in an oven. Most coaters should have a burn off oven for burning off parts that get screwed up and cleaning up any of thier equipment that gets over powdered. Sand blasting or sanding will take some time and effort depending on the quality of powder and surface prep before it was coated.
 
So after you guys get the paint off whats the next step? Polish it with a buffer and some gritty polish then go to a finer polish and so fourth until you get the shine, im very interested in polishing my tunnel just dont know how to start going about it....
 
Here's how it went for me......I used some Jasco premuim stripper, I think any stripper that says it works for epoxy is all the same, I found that it took about three steps to get most of it off. I also found that once you put the stripper on you need to work it within a minute as it dries very fast so work in a very small area. I used a plastic scraping tool that I bought at Home Depot so it wouldn't scratch the aluminum. After I got the bulk of the coating off I found that there was a thin layer that was still there. I used 000 steel wool dipped in stripper that wiped it right off. I took some time but the end result was good.
 
sounds about the same for me. I ended up using a fine brass wire wheel on the cooler extrusions and the corners where the welds were. The wheel didn't scratch too badly, 320 sand paper takes them right out. I will now sand the whole thing several times to 1000 grit before I polish. 12 hours so far and counting..........
 
Are you going to put any clear or any type of finish on after you polish it? I was going to try and polish it with one of those Powerball polishers made by Mother's.
 
MOTHERS POWER BALL IS A GOOD START, BUT YOU WILL WANT TO FINISH UP BY HAND. Oops I had caps lock on. I have never coated my tunnel after polishing it, I just redo every year after the first time it only takes about 4 hours to make look perfect. Do not forget to polish under the hood, rails and etc. If it is alum. smooth and polish and you will blow people away.
 
I was going to just repolish when it was needed. If you search on here for "polishing" or "polished tunnel" you should find lots of threads with some great info. There was a lot of buzz on the topic last winter/spring.
 
Yes strip the paint first. But regardless of what other fellows say here, do not sandblast aluminum. You can use a soft abrasive like baking soda, but not SAND! You can start sanding with anywhere from 180 to 320 dry paper
( I prefer the grey aluminum oxide stuff ) and then switch to wet sandpaper 400, 800, 1500 and even right up to 2000 grit before switching to an aluminum polish. Just don't go super aggressive with the coarse stuff 'cause you do have to sand out all the sanding marks you create.
 
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