Soda Blasting an Aircraft

[Sabremech]

Looking in to having my Mooney soda blasted rather than chemical stripping the paint. Any one out there tried this?

 

[74657]

My bet is that it would ripple the you know what out of the sheet metal.....

[Ron McBride]

In the 80's we had a 310 bead blasted due to EPA head aches in CA. It was a disaster. The company that did it did not know aircraft.   They tried to pull the plane by the U shaped glideslope plane.   The media got into the fuel tanks, We drained and filtered them many times, for probably about 2 years, every time you preflighted and drained the main fuel sumps in the engine cowling, you would have to pull it to clean it, The media would clog the drain and would not stop leaking. The vacuum system was clogged up, we had to replace many vacuum pumps and we installed prefilters to help stop it. The stuff was every where, hit a little turbulence and it floated in the nooks and cranies, and would start to plug every thing up again.   It was several years, before we got most of it.   I would bet that there is still some of it in that plane.  But the plane was absolute show stopper.

As 74657 said, it would ripple the metal, this was not a problem on the 310, but Mooney's ailerons and elevators, I would bet on damage unless they were real knowledgeable.

Ron

[DanM20C]

I have a friend that soda blasts aircraft.  It works great; the only catch is he will only do it to aircraft that are completely disassembled that are getting a "ground up" restoration.  He said it won't be worth the hassle to do it just to prep for paint. 

But soda is a good medium on aluminum airframes if the guy shooting it knows what he is doing. 

 

[Sabremech]

Originally I thought the same, that it would ripple the aluminum but am finding out quite the opposite. I haven't used it myself yet, but friends of mine have been using it on parts that I have sent them with great results. The best part about soda blasting is the clean up is easy unlike stripper.

 I'm going to contact a soda blast company in my area and will post what my research results are.

 

 

[Kwixdraw]

Soda is supposed to be very mild, for use on delicate surfaces and should wash away with water. It is touted as being the choice for light metal where rippling the metal is a concern and on composite surfaces. Supposed to be harmless to chrome and glass.

[Lionudakis]

There is a Aircraft Paint guy in Arkansas that soda blast instead of chemical, one of the magazines did an article a few years back. Its actually pretty delicate.