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My cousin just told me about something called acid dipping. I did a search for acid dipping & only came up with battery acid, but I apologize beforehand if someone already posted it under a different heading. I just never heard of it until today & it sounds quite bizarre to me.
Pardon his English, he was not born here & is not a native speaker:
Acid Dipping Primer
Acid dipping is most closely associated with racing, where the process is used to thin steel body panels to reduce weight. A lot of '60s factory Super Stock cars had their sheetmetal dipped until it was literally paper-thin in the search for that extra few ounces of weight.
While it is true that acid dipping removes metal, you have to leave the panels in the solution for a long period of time to seriously weaken them. The dipping process used by Auto-Metal and other facilities removes very little metal, but does remove everything that isn't steel. Paint, body filler, caulking, undercoating, and rust will be eaten away by the caustic solution.
To prepare a body for a dip, the doors, hood, and trunk lid should be removed. That allows the acid to reach all the nooks and crannies in the shell. The other parts can be dipped separately or with the shell. All rubber plugs, brake and gas lines, and wiring must be removed as well. If it's still attached and ain't metal, it's history.
The amount of time the body spends in the acid tank depends on the amount of paint and undercoating it has. The body is taken out of the tank several times as the technicians check the progress and scrape off paint and other stuck-on gunk. The Starliner's paint proved surprisingly tough, requiring almost two weeks at Auto-Metal. Good thing the body was made from good old American steel or there wouldn't have been any of it left.
When the body is pulled out of the tank for the last time, you'll notice a whitish coating and scale on the metal as it dries. This is a phosphate coating, a byproduct of the dipping process, that protects the bare metal against rust. This coating must be removed before paint work, especially the residue in seams and panels, or it will seep through and ruin your bodywork and paint. That's why it's a good idea to strip the body down as far as possible before dunking it in the acid.
When the body comes out of the tank, every hidden blemish, dent, and rust hole will be exposed.
Pardon his English, he was not born here & is not a native speaker:
Found this on the internet, sounds interesting:
Acid Dipping Primer
Acid dipping is most closely associated with racing, where the process is used to thin steel body panels to reduce weight. A lot of '60s factory Super Stock cars had their sheetmetal dipped until it was literally paper-thin in the search for that extra few ounces of weight.
While it is true that acid dipping removes metal, you have to leave the panels in the solution for a long period of time to seriously weaken them. The dipping process used by Auto-Metal and other facilities removes very little metal, but does remove everything that isn't steel. Paint, body filler, caulking, undercoating, and rust will be eaten away by the caustic solution.
To prepare a body for a dip, the doors, hood, and trunk lid should be removed. That allows the acid to reach all the nooks and crannies in the shell. The other parts can be dipped separately or with the shell. All rubber plugs, brake and gas lines, and wiring must be removed as well. If it's still attached and ain't metal, it's history.
The amount of time the body spends in the acid tank depends on the amount of paint and undercoating it has. The body is taken out of the tank several times as the technicians check the progress and scrape off paint and other stuck-on gunk. The Starliner's paint proved surprisingly tough, requiring almost two weeks at Auto-Metal. Good thing the body was made from good old American steel or there wouldn't have been any of it left.
When the body is pulled out of the tank for the last time, you'll notice a whitish coating and scale on the metal as it dries. This is a phosphate coating, a byproduct of the dipping process, that protects the bare metal against rust. This coating must be removed before paint work, especially the residue in seams and panels, or it will seep through and ruin your bodywork and paint. That's why it's a good idea to strip the body down as far as possible before dunking it in the acid.
When the body comes out of the tank, every hidden blemish, dent, and rust hole will be exposed.
