Cleaning the skins some more

Today I wanted to find a way to clean out the old paint in the "grooves" of the skins. I have this amazing collection of Dremel bits and found two bits of interest. The first was this "polishing" bit that when spun at a medium speed, fit the grooves perfectly. Too fast and it would melt the aluminum. (I tried on a sample piece!)

Here's the bit...


This looks worse than it really is, those black streaks are from all the paint, dust and debris being shot out.

Here's a close up. It takes a real steady hand and some patience to just go slow and keep the bit in the groove.

The area between the utility arms came out really good, as did other areas. Again, I'm not looking for perfection. But before I throw primer and paint on the skins again, I'd like those between-panel areas to be cleaned up. Just adding more paint in there will eventually hide the recessed areas.

I then took this plastic brush, also something for polishing, and used it to clean up whatever the wire one couldn't clean out. It didnt fit into the groove as well, but with some work, it did clean a lot of junk out.

Here's the end result from the clean up. A bit less black outlines kicking around. It actually shined the areas around the grooves!

With that work done, I put the mouse sander back to work. I did a quick once over with 120 grit, then put the 220 on. After cleaning up around all the edges I had worked on, the skins are starting to look good again.

All that remains to do now is the areas I couldn't hit with the power sander. Inside the door areas and places like the panel next to the coin slot (see photo).

I also noticed a few "open" areas that didn't get enough 3M Spray Glue when I bonded the skins. Once the sanding is done, I'll spend a little time with the Crazy Glue and some clamps to close up those gaps.

The weather forecast didn't allow me to paint this week but the good news is that my case of Rustoleum Metallic Purple arrived today! I'll go pick it up next week.