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Anyone used a needle gun on their chassis?


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So I'm about to refurbish my totall stripped chassis. I've discounted acid dipping and had planned to sand / grit / soda blast it via a professional. A DIY route means loads of sand on the lawn or soda stuff everywhere plus buying / hiring equipment. Wire brush is out (just polishes things and cannot get everywhere) so what about using a needle gun? Seems a needle gun is an ideal DIY choice with guns at circa £30 and probably less mess when done in the garage.

Has anyone done this? Tips?

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We used them extensively on RN Warships where they were great for stripping paint. I'd expect them to be very useful on chassis sections and useful on the underbody panels if used with care, I'd be using it at an angle to reduce the impact and avoid marking the panel too much.

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Hi Richard

For around £100 your going to save loads of time and get a better finish if you take it to be blasted which will get into every bit of the chassis. Suspect the needle gun will remove the scale and leave rust in the pits.

Andy

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Well it will find the holes, but thats about it plus to do a chassis I hope you werent planning on doing anything else for a week or two, We used to use them to clean up lorry chassis for MOT prep painting and it took hours and was a horrid job, just get it blasted as that will get in all the nooks and crannies which you will struggle to with a needle gun..

Stuart.

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Thanks for the opinions. Sand blasting is pretty expensive around here (West Sussex) and certainly not £100 or so. More like £750.

I can't actually see it taking that long. Whilst I'm not sure of this guy's other efforts, his needle gun work seems quite easy to me.

 

The guns I've seen are quite small and probably just right for the chassis.

 

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I use a needle gun on my tractor implements that live outside. It works really well on thick metal but thin metal seems to flex and absorb the impact of the needle and strips less material from the surface. I would expect that extensive use would peen thinner metal and result in a poor job.

I think a chassis is at the thin end of scale and might be Ok for a spot or two but not the whole surface.

Alan

 

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Bring it down here (near JN28 M5)...i have had a 4a and my 3a chassis done this year. £80 and £70 respectively. Draw your own conclusions.

Iain

Edited by iain
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On 9/7/2020 at 6:12 PM, Rod1883 said:

Richard

Have you spoken to/tried 'Kirdford Shot Blasting and Powder Coating', located unsurprisingly in Kirdford - pretty close to you.

Contact info - 01403 820880, e: ian@carlyairservices.co.uk

No but I will. Very close, as you say. I used the place very near there at Ifold once and they were pretty expensive then. Also got a high quote from the place at Bucks Green last year.

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Richard,

Give John at MJK blasting a call 01293 862400. He's in Charlwood Surrey but right next to Gatwick Airport. He's done lots of bits for me, including my body tub and much cheaper than the numbers you quote.

Sean

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 months later...

Well in the end I bought an airline needle gun for £26. Absolutely brilliant. It does what I wanted and takes off all the rust scales leaving a perfect surface for painting (with POR15 in my case). So far Ive completed over 3/4 of the chassis in seven hours. I'm surprised how easy it is to get into all the small awkward to get to places all up around the front suspension turrents, etc.

It is actually quite gentle but as expected, the slight hammering action causes quite a lot of the rust scales on the inside of the box sections to fall off so that will make it easier for the (probably) Waxoyl to cling to the inside instead of simply sticking to the flaking rust / gunge.

A lot cheaper than sand blasting and easy for DIY.

Only comment is that the sir gun apparently requires 10cfm. My twin cylinder 100l compressor rated at 14.5cfm keeps pace with it, perhaps others may not.

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Good one Richard,

That sounds useful tool which I presume might also be used locally on cars where the body hasn't been lifted, ie., for rolling restorations where suspension parts are removed and those parts and the localised area of chassis require cleaning up.  Generally I've used power wire brushes in such instances but always struggle with inside corners.  7 hours for 3/4 of the chassis isn't something I'd like to pay a professional rate.  On the other hand, when I've had things media blasted in the past I found the grit left in every hidden corner a flipping nuisance ..which takes hours to thoroughly clean out before paint. 

For me your experience suggests that it would be an inexpensive yet handy tool to have in the arsenal. 

Thanks, Pete

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1 hour ago, Richard Pope said:

Well in the end I bought an airline needle gun for £26. Absolutely brilliant. It does what I wanted and takes off all the rust scales leaving a perfect surface for painting (with POR15 in my case). So far Ive completed over 3/4 of the chassis in seven hours. I'm surprised how easy it is to get into all the small awkward to get to places all up around the front suspension turrents, etc.

It is actually quite gentle but as expected, the slight hammering action causes quite a lot of the rust scales on the inside of the box sections to fall off so that will make it easier for the (probably) Waxoyl to cling to the inside instead of simply sticking to the flaking rust / gunge.

A lot cheaper than sand blasting and easy for DIY.

Only comment is that the sir gun apparently requires 10cfm. My twin cylinder 100l compressor rated at 14.5cfm keeps pace with it, perhaps others may not.

Hi Richard, that's an interesting bit of experience shared. FWIW it seems to me that there are often two requirements or stages for home DIY chassis restoration, ideally one would get the chassis media blasted twice, once to establish and expose everything that needs repair/welding/reinforcement and then again (and primed) for final finish and protection after the repair works. That gets pricey even with reasonable blasting prices based on the running around and dropping off and collecting alone. I'm doing my chassis at the moment and was toying with the idea of a descaling gun to do the first phase and then media blasting/priming for the final stage to completion, all the descaling gun has to do in that situation is expose enough to be reasonably sure the vast majority of the repair requirements become obvious, if some minor stuff slipped through to then be exposed by the final media blasting that wouldn't be the end of the world, some small localised repair and reprime at home.

I spoke with a local media blaster, he charges by the hour, no one likes that open ended cheque arrangement but on the flip side if the chassis is pre cleaned as with your descaling gun then he reckons his time goes from 2- 3 hrs to 1 to 1.5 hrs. He's in Ireland but for discussion purposes, €80 per hour so not including priming  a chassis depending on its state would be €120 to €200 or thereabouts, good process and good value once but not twice. Matter of interest the media blaster chap does his own cars twice  for best results, once and then sends them to the welders and then again and primes after repair, I know its easier for him but apparently some customers do it too.

Thanks for sharing, I'm going to try it based on your experience and see how it goes, who knows maybe it will be good enough to save the blasting.

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My gun was this one https://www.ebay.co.uk/p/12029090262?iid=193628876589

My 7 hours was over a coulple of days and I've virtually finished.

I may agree that the final finish is not quite as smooth as sand blasting but it is a chassis at the end of the day

I was always told a chassis should never be sand blasted more than twice as it does take a lot of metal off each time. When I used my gun over paint, actually most of the paint stayed on assuming it was not on a rusted bit. As I said, quite gentle and indeed you can put your hand on the end when the gun operates (but for safety, don't do this yourself!).

The prices I was quoted for sand blasting are above in my earlier posts.

Note my point about compressor capacity as mine never stopped for two hours!

Hope this helps for you.

Finally, I'm using POR15 paint and have done so before. You can hit it with a hammer afterwards and it does not chip off. Brillant stuff.

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I had my chassis blasted and painted by a company Blastreat in Ringmer Sussex, many years ago. I have had no problems  since then. Internally I used Bilt Hamber system and I find their products to be very efficient and long lasting. I have a plan showing where to drill the holes and injected the whole chassis in 3 hours and second coat a month later 2 hours and very little wastage or overspray. 

Good luck Richard & B

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