Painting a block

[Nicad]

If ever you want to get your block down to the steel before painting it, I'd suggest getting a needle scaler.
A few years ago SF Don suggested these were great to strip undercoating off a floor. The one I bought on eBay was a little brutal for this, so it has sat around for a while in the tool box.
Today I was on the phone with tech support at POR15 as I plan on using their paint system on my block because it worked so well on the 2002.
My block has 80 % Blue paint on it and they said you really had to get it down to bare metal for reliable adhesion. They suggested metal stripper. I hate using that stuff.
So I grabbed the needle the scaler.
I had the whole side of the block done in 5 minutes. Fantastic.


You can get these needle scalers pretty cheap from harbor freight, or Amazon. Might be of dubious quality or it might be fine.
Mine is a pretty beefy US made Texas pneumatic.

 

[dave v. in nc]

I assume that this is a rotating posse of steel rods that work in an abrasive way? ...like a paint massage? I'm iggornant... That looks great...

 

[JFENG]

Those steel rods jab outward at a high repetition rate. They impact on the target surface and cause things like paint to flake off. . I have the HF version and it's a good way to clean old paint off heavy cast iron parts. But it'll take the sharpness of edges and damage threads of tapped holes, so you have to be a little judicious with them. My HF lost a couple needles after I used it to clean up an M30 block, a diff housing, and an LBC block. Also the needles aren't really fine pitched enough to get into some nooks and crannies. So you still need asome wire wheels, etc. id never use one in anything but heavy steel and iron (e.g. Not on anything alloy).

 

[Nicad]

There is a smaller one made in Japan I have come close to winning on Ebay called a Nitto kohki jc-16
These are very expensive new.