Bead blasting for paint removal?

[jory]

Do you guys have any experience with bead blasting as a means of removing a spray paint job on a gun?

The person I purchased an upper from quite some time ago had done a rattle can job on it that I personally don't care about, but may impact my ability to sell it in the future. I was hoping to be able to remove the paint from the handguard and barrel via bead blasting to save time and not have to use chemicals and elbow grease.

Will bead blasting have any negative impact to the look/finish of the barrel and/or handguard. It's a DDM4V5 upper- so a picatinny railed handguard. I'd likely just pull the BCG and charging handle from the upper, patch/tape up the barrel to seal it and go to town on it. I just want to make sure i'm not going to mess up the finish on anything.

Thanks!

 

[canucklehead]

Beadblasting WILL remove the finish from underneath the paint. Use acetone and some sort of brush... yes it sucks, but much less than having a stripped upper.

 

[dero338]

when I want to blast a part very fragile like carb parts or similar stuff, I use baking soda.
it should remove cheap paint but not ceracoat

 

[Brian46]

What you should be looking for is someone that does vapour blasting, Google looking for pics and you can see the results

 

[OkayShooter]

goof off graffiti remover and a nylon brush. Its not as much work as you think to remove spray bomb paint jobs. It doesn't damage the under finish either.

 

[JohnnyP636]

"Bead blasting" is a very board term! and in a lot of cases people lump all types of abrasive media blasting into one category of "bead blasting" or "sand blasting"

I own a power coating shop where we media blast all components before coating them.....I have 1000's of different types and grits of media available to me, aluminum oxide, glass beads, garnet, plastic beads, silica sand, even crushed walnut shells! Most of which are also available in different levels of grit....

Some will remove paint and metal, others will just remove paint, or even just dirt from the surface, without removing any material from the base metal at all

Think of it like regular sand papers in different grits, if I use 2000 grit its not going to remove metal, if I use 40 grit its going to remove metal...

So if you use the correct "media" for the task it will do exactly what you want, without affecting the base material

 

[can14]

Soak in a carb cleaning tank or try a ammonia 100% or 50/50

 

[Leg]

Acetone will remove the paint and not damage the finish. A bit of work but easy to do and won't cost you anything.

 

[Stoner99]

Paint removal from a spray can i bought from Canadian Tire worked great.