OK gentlemen,
I've read all the postings and it seems like everyone is stripping CARC off of steel. What do you do for an aluminum HMMWV? AM General's quality control obviously didn't make it down the hallway to the paint department. There's not an ounce of primer on the body. Where the CARC is flaking off it goes directly to anodized aluminum. In other places it's like part of the metal. Go figure.
Sanding, abrasive blasting, or needle guns are out because they'll remove the anodizing and leave the aluminum suceptible to oxidation. Has anyone done large areas with either of the strippers mentiioned?
My truck has an ambulance body on it and expansion and contraction have cause some of the body rivets on top to loosen up and weep in wet weather. What I want to do is to strip the entire top and then use Line X or Herculiner on it to seal it again. Since it's paintable I can make it green again fairly easily.
Thanks
I can't comment on removing CARC from aluminum with Aircraft stripper but to repaint it you can do the following
1. Clean with rotary wire brush or grit blasting. If aluminum is already anodized then this abrasive cleaning is not suggested as you will remove any anodize coating.
2. [FONT="]I would recomend Aerowash @ 10-15% concentration from Henkel. Then apply a deoxidizer. suggest Ridoline 4450 @ 100 % concentration again from Henkel (this is technically the proper procedure but this can probably be skipped and replaced with a good acetone or ethanol wipe if your on a budget)
3. If surface is anodized skip to step 4. If it is not anodized use Alodine 5700 pretreatment. This can be sprayed out of any spray bottle onto the bare aluminum.
4. [/FONT][FONT="]Prime: use MIL-PRF-23377 Type I, Class N epoxy primer[/FONT]
5. Paint with [FONT="]MIL-DTL-53039 Type II CARC
If done properly I've seen this hold up under some absolutely brutal conditions.
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