How good is caustic soda for stripping car parts?

[rcx132]

There's a few online mentions of people doing this but not much information on how well it works or how to do it. Has anyone any experience? I've got car parts with semi closed profiles that media blasting won't reach. Things like suspension wishbones and gearbox brackets.

Is it as simple as putting caustic soda into a plastic tank and chucking your parts in and waiting?

 

[rtbcomp]

Welcome to the forum.

Just to say don't try caustic soda (sodium hydroxide -NaOH) on aluminium, it will eat it!

Results may vary according to the type of paint, but yes it's a case of putting it in a plastic bucket and seeing if it works, you may have to warm it up a bit and agitate it from time to time.

Obviously wear stout rubber gloves and eye protection at least.

 

[sardine]

Its similar to detergent, not so good in cold water, in the olde days they had boiling tanks of soda for degreasing. However if you prepare it wrong the whole tank will erupt like a geyser, so I wouldn't mess with it if I were you.

 

[rcx132]

Thanks for welcoming me but actually I've used the forum before I just had to change my username because I had some problems

I just spoke to a specialist that sell all sorts of home metal prep kits and they said that caustic soda heated too high is dangerous and that cool caustic soda will only work on soft paints, not 2k. But apparently electrolysis cleaning combined with caustic I think he said would work and they will send me information on that.