removal of old lines

[Anonymous]

hey Dan,

need to know the best way to remove old flaking lines.
Its an indoor job on slick concrete floors and the floors do not
have any concrete sealer on them.
they want all the lines taken up and cleaned and resprayed.
I’ve always just sprayed over the old lines but these guys
want the old ones removed and cleaned and have new sprayed
lines. What ever help you can give will be appreciated.
Hope things are going well for you dude.

thanks,

Brad
Piedmont Seal & Stripe LLC.
http://www.piedmontsealandstripe.com

[Girish C. Dubey, President STAR, INC.]

Hello Brad
I think most of us are going to jump right on the “Shot Blasting” band wagon.
Shot Blasting is kinda like Sand Blasting. The “Medium” that’s used to “blast” something here…is sand.
Paint is taken off…etc…maybe even some of the surface too!
Some car enthusiasts use crushed walnut shells as a medium. If you put enough air pressure behind crushed walnut shells…it’ll take the paint off…without hurting the metal.
All that said…remember those little BBs that are inside a Shot Gun Shell?…those little BBs are called “Shot”.
Bottom line…a Shot Blaster is used to blast the concrete floor. The Medium here is metal Shot.
There are a couple reasons…
1) Remove paint.
2) Roughen up a smooth surface…like a warehouse floor…to become “rough”…like the outside sidewalk.
That way…paint will have a little better chance of “gripping” that slightly rougher surface…and last longer.
3) Simply clean the surface.
I’ve used a Shot Blaster for all (3) reasons.
The nice thing about a Shot Blaster…although some BBs do fly all around…is that the cleaning is almost simultaneous.
The BBs…or Shot…are blown to the floor. They hit the floor at an angle. They then bounce up and are captured in a vacuum. The paint chips along with the small chips of concrete are separated. The Shot is then “recycled” a few times. After a while…the shot is gone…because it’s either used up or so distorted that it gets sucked up with the concrete chips and ends up in the vacuum.
SO…add more Shot…and do not forget to empty the vacuum.
It’s that simple.
It is loud…wear ear plugs. YES…some Shot will escape the vacuum and seriously…seriously…fly far and hard…lose an eye hard…!
Wear ear and eye protection.
Next…check out a good tool rental company. Almost all carry a Shot Blasting unit…with the vacuum system.
Next…after the floor is shot blasted it’s now ready to accept the paint.
Next…the “Path” the Shot Blaster makes is about 8″ wide…( some machines can make a 12″ or so wide path ). Simply re-stripe inside the 8″ wide path.
Sometimes you’ll hear individuals say…”Blast Track”. That refers to the 8″ wide path.
Other times someone may ask you to simply Shot Blast the entire floor. I’ve painted entire garage floors.
How’s that for a starter?
There may also be some videos out there too. I’d be surprised if there weren’t.
Brad, I hope I hope I helped a little anyhow.
Dan

[Anonymous]

yea,

that’s a big help. I wonder if the machine will do a narrower line.
4″ to 6″ lines will work perfect for the job that I have to do. But if it
does 8″ lines then that will work for me, I’ll call around and see if I can
find me one of those machines and get started.

thanks for the help Dan

Brad

[Author]

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