A paint removal method, works great but may be risky...

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The Fishing Hobby
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A paint removal method, works great but may be risky...

Post by The Fishing Hobby »

I just wanted to throw this out there because it is something at least worth discussing in my opinion. There are several potential problems with this method but I used it on the reel pictured with outstanding results so I would say it is something worth looking into.
I will start out by saying this wasn't an incredibly expensive or valuable reel that I tried this method on. If it messed it up I wasn't going to lose any sleep over it. The result looks a lot like what you would get using an extremely gental blast media, so I was pretty impressed.

To strip the paint on this reel pretty much effortlessly, I used the self cleaning function on my oven.
Now there are some potential problems with this and I am not encouraging others to try it. I am simply looking to open up the topic for discussion.

Potential problems:
1) not all ovens are the same, some could possibly get hotter than mine...maybe even hot enough to melt aluminum
2) toxic fumes. Not sure about that one. I would assume this paint was some sort of oil based enmel and the amount on the reel is probably pretty small. Again I just don't know how much of a concern that it should be. To be safe, it would probably be best to use an old oven in a well ventilated shop and possibly wearing a respirator. I don't know if all of that is necessary or not. I did mine in the house just turning on the vent hood.
3) potential to warp the metal being heated. In an effort to prevent this, I heated up the oven with the parts in it starting from the lowest setting and gradually increasing to its highest baking setting over the course of 15-20 minutes. I then turned off the bake function and set the oven to self cleaning. I only left my parts in the oven for 40 minutes before cancelling the self cleaning function. After that time, I allowed the parts to cool on their own in the closed oven for a few hours, again to try and prevent thermal shock/warping.
4) also burns off lubricants. This is a good thing when repainting It is a bad thing for oilite type bushings. I removed the bushing from the reel to prevent damaging it.
5) dissimilar metals being heated together. There were 2 steel parts I left in. One was a friction fit pressed in steel pin in the crank handle and the other was a steel pin that the anti-reverse dog pivots on. I actually lightly oiled these pins in hopes that the oil would burn and make a semi protective coating kind of like seasoning a cast iron skillet. That appears to have happened. I don't know how much of a potential problem it is to heat dissimilar metals together.

When I did this, I wasn't really sure how hot my oven gets so I used foil under the parts and watched carefully for any signs of melting of the foil. It didn't harm the foil in the 40 minutes I heated the parts using the self cleaning function in my oven.

The reason I did this process is because I tried removing the paint with a nasty chemical striper with very little luck. I also tried a heat gun and it wasn't working well and I worried about warping when heating small areas. I decided a gradual heat up and cool down evenly in the oven might be a better option. I had used the self cleaning feature to clean up old nasty cast iron skillets in the past with great success so I thought it may work well for paint removal as well. It did a great job for me in this case.

One note to add, this process didn't seem to harm any anodizing. I didn't think it would and I don't believe it did. I checked continuity of the anodized parts and there is none just as it should be.

Does anyone else have any thoughts, questions or concerns about doing this?
I would love to hear any feedback, positive or negative. This may be a good option or a bad option of others but I think it is worth examination.




Last edited by The Fishing Hobby on Thu Apr 20, 2017 10:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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john elder
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Re: A paint removal method, works great but may be risky...

Post by john elder »

You aren't married, are you, Kev... :shock: :D

looks like you got good results, but an effective, kinder-gentler stripper you can use that works well and is not as vicious to use as methylene chloride-based strippers is call CitraStrip. You don't want to eat it, but you can wear plastic gloves and they won't melt into your flesh as with the MC strippers. Give a try and save the oven for the thanksgiving turkey!
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The Fishing Hobby
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Re: A paint removal method, works great but may be risky...

Post by The Fishing Hobby »

Yes I am married, but she pretty much lets me do what I want as long as there is no damage or nasty odors involved! I actually tried CitriStrip and then Klean-Strip after that thinking it would do it but they weren't working at all of the body and cup. I suspect the enamel was baked on for the body and cup and that was the problem? Maybe not, but for whatever reason it was really stuck.

I smoke my turkeys anyway :D
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Midway Tommy D
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Re: A paint removal method, works great but may be risky...

Post by Midway Tommy D »

Turned out looking pretty nice, no scratches or burnish marks to speak of. Since it's a '68 issue I might be a little concerned about lead additive, but I have no idea how lead based paint and hi temp react & disperse, especially in a residential oven. I think, if I were going to make a habit out of it, I would opt for a "self cleaner" out in the shed. :|
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Re: A paint removal method, works great but may be risky...

Post by sdlehr »

Aluminum melts at 1221F. I think our self-cleaning oven operates around 700-800, but I'm not sure.

When the cycle was over was the old paint just some ash sitting on the surface of the metal like a powder? Was there any remnant of the paint?

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Re: A paint removal method, works great but may be risky...

Post by The Fishing Hobby »

I think that would be the way to go (oven in a shop) as well. There wasn't much ash from the paint at all left. You can see a few spots on the foil in the pictures. As far as I could tell it just fell off. I washed the parts just make sure they were clean. Lead would be a concern. I don't think it can be a vapor though I could be wrong. Definitely would want something under it to catch anything that falls off.
Last edited by The Fishing Hobby on Thu Apr 20, 2017 1:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Kevin Connell
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Re: A paint removal method, works great but may be risky...

Post by The Fishing Hobby »

Well apparently lead vaporizes around 1000°F
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