I needed to repair some fender dents on my 1977 Mercury Colony Park, from the PO. Hoping the paint under the woodgrain was in good shape, I bought the woodgrain/decal remover everyone raves about and two decal eraser wheels. After hours of heating the fender with a heat gun, spraying the remover, waiting twice as long as recommended, the woodgrain didn't budge. So I started with the decal eraser and it slowly removed the woodgrain but it required a entire eraser wheel to clear off the few areas that needed repair. And sanding didn't do much either. After all that I discovered the original paint was cracked. So I have decided to just strip decal, paint and all from the panel areas, but I need to know if anyone recommends an easy to use (i.e. on vertical surfaces) and efficient (aggressive) paint stripper that will also remove the woodgrain at the same time. I just want to get back to bare metal and start over with a sound foundation. And not spend a fortune and weeks removing paint an decal that will be covered later anyway. Any words of experience?
What do you have in the way of power and pnuematic tools? 40 grit sandpaper or flexible grinding discs will make short work of it.
Hoping for something with less work. My bust your a** to simply remove something that will be replaced!
My experience with paint stripper is that it's harder to use, requires more clean-up time, and in fact does make you bust your arse to use it. Hire a sand blaster and let him to all the work.
