Paint removal

[mulrik]

My car was resprayed before I bought it (white), but I dream of gettingit back to the original color (papyrus white 717). I have discovered that I can "polish" my way into the original color using coarse polish. My question is if it is possible and recommendable to remove the new paint to get to the old paint below and what tools and chemicals I should use?

'67 250 SL Papyrus White 113043-10-000023

[n/a]

Have a restoration shop strip it properly. Not an easy job, nor is it cheap.

Tom Hanson in CA

[Bob G ✝︎]

Mulrik:
The fact that you can polish through the newer paint to the old tells me that a sealer primers was not used before it was resprayed. I would recommend you take it to a good body shop that knows these cars and have the old and newer paint striped professionally. Painting on these cars requires the knoledge of use of both allumium substrates and steel. An investment that will yeld more dollar value to your car if done correctly.
Bob Geco

[George Davis]

Mulrik,

If I understand correctly, are you asking if you can remove the newer paint to expose the original paint?  This is risky and not something that is normally done, but if you are very, very, very patient, and very, very, very lucky too, you might be able to do it.

Problems:
Whatever you use to remove the new paint will also remove the original paint, so you'd have to go very easy, work a very small area, and know exactly when to stop.  If you really want to try this, coarse and fine polishes would probably be the best things to use, and work by hand, no machines.
Also, you don't know what you'll find under the new paint.  You could get lucky and find near-perfect original paint all over the car, or you could find pretty bad paint, or areas that were spot-repaired that would look pretty bad when exposed.


George Davis
'69 280 SL Euro manual

[Ed Cave]

If a former owner changed it from Papyrus White to White, it is not because he wanted to change the color. Most likely the paint was poor and that prompted the repaint.

Also, I can't imagine trying to take off the top coat by hand and achieving very consistent results over the extent of the car. Seems virtually impossible.

I'd say if you want it Papyrus White you either need to strip it and start over or simply paint what you have.

Ed Cave
Atlanta, GA

1964 356C
1971 280SL
2002 SC430
2004 A4 3.0