Soda Vs. Aluminum oxide

[ma73z]

Hey guys just curious which would be better soda or aluminum oxide for doing the entire body top and bottom.

[elitecustombody]

I'd avoid soda,too much hassle to clean and neutralize the residue,if you don't ,you'll end up with sheets of paint/primer coming right off

[ma73z]

Thanks Stefan, that's what I have been hearing about soda, but do you have any of those problems with the aluminum oxide or would you stay away from blasting all together, sorry to ask dumb questions but when it comes to body work I'm dumb.:(

[minendrews68]

I'd avoid soda,too much hassle to clean and neutralize the residue,if you don't ,you'll end up with sheets of paint/primer coming right off

X2! The aluminum oxide should not give you any problem. Just make sure you get it all out of the crevices etc. You wouldn't want to blow out blasting media when painting. The aluminum oxide comes in different grits too, so you can get as smooth a finish as you could ask for....
Carl

[JRouche]

I for one wont use a soda blasting, its just too active, the soda, no matter how much you clean it off. The AO is a better choice. But really, if its available for you, a plastic media would be my number one pick. Completely inactive. JR

[ma73z]

Thank you guys I appreciate the help.

[youthpastor]

ditto on getting all the crap blown off, just pulled the quarters on a car- the rockers were FULL to the TOP of media....what a mess!

[rwhite692]

+1 for AlO2

You should make every effort to get the car up on a rotisserie so you can flip it over and get all the media out.

[HRBS]

Sorry to jump in on an old thread.
I agree with most here and would go with AO.
My opinion is solely based on my (bad) experience. We used Soda on a project here 2 years ago and it turned out to be one of my worst nightmares since I opened my doors. I've always used AO and Plastic media prior to this particular project but decided to try something different. (For the record I usually try something "different" on my own personal cars before applying to a customer car).
Long story short, like others mentioned neutralizing after a Soda blast is a critical step prior to body prep, mud and paint. We thought we did a thorough job. The car was painted in June and by Sept we had a small pin sized bubble turn into a quarter sized bubble. The area was where we grafted a spoiler to a decklid etc. That area recieved several welds and grinding etc. After the bubble we chemically stripped the deck lid and started over. Again neutralizing the area before working with it again. This time we used panel bond adhesive and ground it down etc etc. Well.... 3 months later it reappeared. After the third time it was apparent the soda imbedded in a bad weld and festered. So after re-doing the lid 3 times, I rebuilt the decklid from scratch. :willy:
I could never charge for this mishap so I ate alot of time and material cost all because I chose to experiment on a clients car. I was just lucky my client was a great guy and understanding.

[T_Raven]

Man it's good to hear some info like this. For a long time I never heard anything but good things about soda. I was recently looking into buying a large blaster to tow around and do some soda blasting. I mainly wanted it for blasting cars but figured I could make some money blasting other things. I'm not even going to mess with soda now after all the stuff I've read.