Dry - Ice Blasting to remove undercoating

Fritzi · #1 (**permalink**) 11-28-2004, 11:34 PM

I saw this a year or so ago in German Classic Car magazines - and was wondering if any of you have any experience with it or know of any companies here in the US (California)?

The results are quite amazing and the magazine tests and reviews are very positive. It sure saves tons of work, dust and dirt and your car is clean like new from underneath.....

http://www.carblast.de/

(click on "Beispiele" - samples - and check out the different cars - especially the Duetto with 3 coats of undercoating)

http://www.trockeneis-reinigung.com/

Fritzi - 88 Verde
67 GTV Project

**tubut** · #2 (**permalink**) 11-29-2004, 01:25 AM

Very interesting stuff. Would have saved me a lot of time!!!

**blu58spider** · #3 (**permalink**) 01-09-2005, 01:10 PM

Facing the prospect of hours under my car with a wire brush, this seems like a heavenly idea. And so clever: the media evaporates! It doesn't oxidize!

I did some web searching, and there seem to several co's that do dry ice blasting in the US, but I didn't find any that do it for automotive resto. (Seems that depending on the size of the dry ice pieces this can be used for lots of different kinds of cleaning -- most of the US sites I found are aimed at industrial cleaning and fire damage restoration. (Can be used to remove smoke stains and mold from wood.)

Anybody heard of someone that does this for auto restoration in the US??

roller · #4 (**permalink**) 01-10-2005, 07:24 PM

this looks great. it would be great to find someone who does this in the northwest u.s.!

othercarsaford · #5 (**permalink**) 01-11-2005, 07:44 AM

Can this be done with all the components still in place? It looks like they just tipped the car and blasted it with everything (exhaust, feul lines, etc.) still in place. If that is the case, then that would make restoration of the body much easier.

Fritzi · #6 (**permalink**) 01-11-2005, 08:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by othercarsaford

Can this be done with all the components still in place? It looks like they just tipped the car and blasted it with everything (exhaust, feul lines, etc.) still in place. If that is the case, then that would make restoration of the body much easier.

GTD · #7 (**permalink**) 01-11-2005, 08:45 PM

While new in the sense that everyone hasn't heard of it, this technique has been around awhile in the industrial world.

Check this out to see who's close to you:
http://www.blastcleaningdirectory.com/Countries/USA.htm

damoj · #8 (**permalink**) 01-14-2005, 06:33 PM

Hmmm.. there is a shop just up the road from me.. I think I will give them a call.

Thanks for the info!

**pathung** · #9 (**permalink**) 09-26-2005, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by damoj

Hmmm.. there is a shop just up the road from me.. I think I will give them a call.

Thanks for the info!

**pathung** · #10 (**permalink**) 09-26-2005, 11:23 AM

The folks at CryoClean got back to me with the message below (no more scraping?). Now I just need to find out how much it'll cost.

"Patrick,

As a matter of fact I have done undercoatings before. We did a classic car that had an interior fire and smelled the thing up pretty bad. After the interior was stripped, I blasted the inside and removed the smoke and smell. Then we went underneath and removed all the undercoating. It gets cold and just pops off in chunks.I worked in a hot rod shop so I know what your talking about. I was able to remove 50 year old undercoating without damaging the paint on the outside of the car.I can blast right over gas tanks with no problem because dry ice is non-explosive and non-conductive. I can clean a running engine and all the wiring etc. because there is no water involved. Dry ice does not have the ability to remove metal (aluminum/brass/etc.) because it is non abrasive. If you get the car up on a rack, I can blast the underside."

**tubut** · #11 (**permalink**) 09-26-2005, 12:21 PM

One of my friends tried a dry ice company. We learned there are several ways of doing it.

The method used by the companies mentioned at the beginning of the thread shoot dry ice pellets at the body. We couldn't find anyone having such equipment. I contacted the manufacturer and they told me a basic setup costs about 50,000 Euros and requires a compressor similar to what is used for large jack hammers on construction sites (e.g. the trailers with the diesel engines).

The method used by the guy my friend used apparently looked more like a pressure washer with liquid nitrogen. This works too, but probably takes a lot more time than the pellet machines. In a test, it took about 5 minutes to remove about 4 sq. in of coating inside the trunk lid of a 2600 Touring Spider. The results were good -- but not any faster than using a torch to soften the undercoating for scraping it off.

So, I suggest you run tests first to see how much time it takes (and what the resulting costs are).

Ricklandia · #12 (**permalink**) 09-26-2005, 01:19 PM

Never heard of it for blasting, but interestingly I have heard of using dry ice for matting. I have a Datsun 240Z that I'm slowly restoring, and Datsun for some strange reason, glued down it's floorpan insulation/sound deadener matting BEFORE it painted the chassis's. Not too smart, to say the least, and also not surprising that a very large number of these old Z's now suffer from floorpan rust through. When discussing options for removing this matting with some of the Z veterans, several people made the suggestion that by filling the floorpan with dry ice, let it sit until it was nearly all evaporated, you could then take a rubber mallet and whack the floorpan. I have not done this myself (yet) but several others reported it works very well. The dry ice will make the matting and glue (almost the consistancy of undercoating) so brittle that it will literally crack and flake off/up and can be removed in large chips. It does not harm anything, unless of course you get too exhuberant with the rubber mallet!

I'm definitely going to pass along this link to my Z pals and see if anyone has tried it (USA or worldwide).

EDIT: Mentioned this on my Z board and someone passed along this link:

http://www.icetech.dk/english/index1.htm

Nice video section which includes an Oldsmobile being cleaned/stripped.

Gausie · #13 (**permalink**) 10-20-2005, 01:49 PM

wonder if you could hook up a pub beer pressure cylinder or large welding canister to some beadblasting kit with plastic media and get similar results? May give it a go....

60sRacer · #14 (**permalink**) 10-22-2005, 01:50 PM

Dry ice blasting is the latest in industrial cleaning in emission and polution controlled areas (like California) because of the lack of dust and chemical disposal problems. Usually they go to the site to work, so its possible to find someone to come to your shop.

JoeCab · #15 (**permalink**) 10-22-2005, 02:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gausie

wonder if you could hook up a pub beer pressure cylinder or large welding canister to some beadblasting kit with plastic media and get similar results? May give it a go....