Hey Tige’ Owners!
I decided that I wanted to change the color of my tower in the off season. The guy I bought it from had ordered it orange form his dealer and while I’m a die hard Broncos fan and I definitely didn’t hate it I think it will look better either black or gray to match my boat.
I contacted several local powder coat businesses to get some quotes for both stripping the old powder coat and applying the new. Well, turns out this stuff is expensive to strip, like $400 dollars was the cheapest I was quoted expensive. That was just to strip it off. Ouch! Out comes the cheap *** in me and I started doing some research online to figure out my options. You can use a chemical, an oven (danger of warping the metal) or sandblasting. (my tower is aluminum so I didn’t want to go this route, I’ve heard it can leave the aluminum slightly pitted)
Pretty sure these shops outsource this job to the same sandblasting company at $150/hr, I called the sandblaster direct and was told $110/hr with no guarantee how long it’ll take.
I found several videos on YouTube and a got a tip from Rugger on Wake garage on how to chemically strip it. I figured I’d share my experience here with you good people as well.
It’s a fairly easy process but you need warm temperatures (product says 70-85 is best), and a liberal amount of the stripper for it to work correctly. I noticed it seemed to work best in direct sunlight as well.
Stuff you’ll need-
-Jasco paint and epoxy remover $30 Home Depot or Lowe’s (get the big can, you’ll need it)
-2 or 3 of the cheapest paint brushes you can get
-plastic paint a scraper (buy several and sharpen the edge before each piece with a grinder or file)
-brass brush (used to clean up angles and welded areas)
-something metal to pour the stripper in (I used a metal paint roller pan)
-heavy duty chemical gloves (this stripper, like most, is nasty
)
-wear a pair of safety goggles or glasses, a long sleeve shirt and jeans
All in I spent around $45 in materials
The process-
Set your tower pieces out, preferably outdoors or at a minimum a very well ventilated area.
Pour a bunch of the stripper in your pan and start brushing thick layers of it onto the tower pieces. More like globbing it on then painting. The more the better. The idea is to do one side of the piece at a time. I just coated all the pieces on one side then checked to see how it was working. It takes a good 15-30 minutes for it to really work. You’ll see it bubbling up and turning into a rubbery consistency. If some places aren’t raising up, glob some more stripper on it and give it another 10 minutes or so. After coating everything and giving it 10 more minutes I started scraping the first piece. You can use your hand to scrape off a bunch of the really lose stuff then the plastic scraper and brush for the rest. I was bending the scraper so it contacted more of the tower taking long strips of the powder off at a time.
I was also told a good, easy way to get the loose stuff off is by using a power washer after it bubbles up although I didn’t try that method (no power washer).
The stripper is water soluble so it can be cleaned off of the tower, brushes, pans, etc... with water pretty easily.
All in all it’s a mind numbingly easy project but is a bit labor intensive. I suspect if I just used more of the stripper and gave it adequate time to work it would be easier. (Work smarter not harder)
I’m in Denver so for a winter project it’s been tough to come by days that are warm enough for the chemical to work well.
Hope this helps someone else!
Cheers
D976D84C-268E-48BE-ACFE-13C3B74FBC74.jpg
24EBB448-BF7A-4966-843C-9A1E9ECBD411.jpg
27537FF9-369B-493D-9D4A-A962714E6F42.jpg
A087751D-76BC-4C9F-90AD-D9F39788BFAA.jpg
78839D9F-2C30-49A1-990A-7621FD710BB6.jpg
0874C383-457E-4E78-9FA8-1834000028B8.jpg
I decided that I wanted to change the color of my tower in the off season. The guy I bought it from had ordered it orange form his dealer and while I’m a die hard Broncos fan and I definitely didn’t hate it I think it will look better either black or gray to match my boat.
I contacted several local powder coat businesses to get some quotes for both stripping the old powder coat and applying the new. Well, turns out this stuff is expensive to strip, like $400 dollars was the cheapest I was quoted expensive. That was just to strip it off. Ouch! Out comes the cheap *** in me and I started doing some research online to figure out my options. You can use a chemical, an oven (danger of warping the metal) or sandblasting. (my tower is aluminum so I didn’t want to go this route, I’ve heard it can leave the aluminum slightly pitted)
Pretty sure these shops outsource this job to the same sandblasting company at $150/hr, I called the sandblaster direct and was told $110/hr with no guarantee how long it’ll take.
I found several videos on YouTube and a got a tip from Rugger on Wake garage on how to chemically strip it. I figured I’d share my experience here with you good people as well.
It’s a fairly easy process but you need warm temperatures (product says 70-85 is best), and a liberal amount of the stripper for it to work correctly. I noticed it seemed to work best in direct sunlight as well.
Stuff you’ll need-
-Jasco paint and epoxy remover $30 Home Depot or Lowe’s (get the big can, you’ll need it)
-2 or 3 of the cheapest paint brushes you can get
-plastic paint a scraper (buy several and sharpen the edge before each piece with a grinder or file)
-brass brush (used to clean up angles and welded areas)
-something metal to pour the stripper in (I used a metal paint roller pan)
-heavy duty chemical gloves (this stripper, like most, is nasty
)-wear a pair of safety goggles or glasses, a long sleeve shirt and jeans
All in I spent around $45 in materials
The process-
Set your tower pieces out, preferably outdoors or at a minimum a very well ventilated area.
Pour a bunch of the stripper in your pan and start brushing thick layers of it onto the tower pieces. More like globbing it on then painting. The more the better. The idea is to do one side of the piece at a time. I just coated all the pieces on one side then checked to see how it was working. It takes a good 15-30 minutes for it to really work. You’ll see it bubbling up and turning into a rubbery consistency. If some places aren’t raising up, glob some more stripper on it and give it another 10 minutes or so. After coating everything and giving it 10 more minutes I started scraping the first piece. You can use your hand to scrape off a bunch of the really lose stuff then the plastic scraper and brush for the rest. I was bending the scraper so it contacted more of the tower taking long strips of the powder off at a time.
I was also told a good, easy way to get the loose stuff off is by using a power washer after it bubbles up although I didn’t try that method (no power washer).
The stripper is water soluble so it can be cleaned off of the tower, brushes, pans, etc... with water pretty easily.
All in all it’s a mind numbingly easy project but is a bit labor intensive. I suspect if I just used more of the stripper and gave it adequate time to work it would be easier. (Work smarter not harder)
I’m in Denver so for a winter project it’s been tough to come by days that are warm enough for the chemical to work well.
Hope this helps someone else!
Cheers
D976D84C-268E-48BE-ACFE-13C3B74FBC74.jpg
24EBB448-BF7A-4966-843C-9A1E9ECBD411.jpg
27537FF9-369B-493D-9D4A-A962714E6F42.jpg
A087751D-76BC-4C9F-90AD-D9F39788BFAA.jpg
78839D9F-2C30-49A1-990A-7621FD710BB6.jpg
0874C383-457E-4E78-9FA8-1834000028B8.jpg
Comment