Project Barn Find AMX gets Soda Blasted

We haven’t said much about our Project Barn Find AMX for a while because we got detoured off onto some other projects for a while but spring is coming and I am determined to drive this little hot rod to the Nashville Good Guys show in May. That kind of deadline means getting down to some serious work. Although we have continued to do little things to the car we recently had the entire exterior of the car Soda Blasted. We did this at our location which is out in the country with lots of open space. If you don’t live in a remote area don’t try this at home kids, you are going to have some very upset neighbors!

Baking soda is used as the blasting media and a large percentage of it turns into a extremely fine cloud the instant it it’s the car surface under high pressure. The preparation is considerably different than other more abrasive media. It was our first time using this process and it won’t be the last but we learned a lot on this project.

Baking soda will strip off the paint but will not damage soft surfaces like rubber nor will it damage glass, chrome or other unpainted trim. However, that does not mean you don’t have to protect areas and mask things off. Our Project Barn Find AMX is in driving condition and has a full interior still in it. That meant that we had to protect all of the painted surfaces under the hood and everything on the interior.

I am not going to get into a lot of detail in this post. You can Click Here to go to our Project Barn Find AMX page and see a couple dozen photos and read a lot more details.

As the process was nearing completion we were greatly relieved to verify that the body was just as sound as we had suspected. We discovered only one small area were a skim coat had been applied in the right rear quarter.

As for all that bare metal, the baking soda leaves a film on it that will prevent rust as long as the body is stored inside. Prior to paint the body must be cleaned carefully to remove this film or there will be paint issues in the future. We are leaving it as is and will keep it dry inside until it goes to the paint shop in a few weeks.