Removing paint from donor tank

[paticus]

Hi everybody. Newbie to the forum.

I started a smoker build with a 60 gallon Compressor tank. I'm using Feldon's calculator to plan out all of the dimensions, and will have a build topic.

However, I'm trying to figure out what to do with the black paint that is on the outside of this tank. I thought I could loosen it up with an oxy acetylene torch and angle grind (with wire brush) right off, but all I'm doing is knocking off the surface of the paint. Normally I would use a spray on paint stripper, but I'm hesitant to use that around a future food cooker.

Any suggestions?

For the final finish, my plan was to re-spray it with a high temp paint. If I can get nice bare metal I'm also considering boiled linseed oil.

 

[forktender]

Weed burner, putty knife for scraping and an angle grinder with wire wheels are your friend.

 

[mike243]

Wear goggles when wire wheeling, they make a hand held sand blaster if you have a good compressor that will be the easiest way imo,

 

[mike243]

the son has this 1 Powermate Vx 009-0367CT Air Sandblaster with 50-Pound Hopper - Power Sand Blasters - Amazon.com

 

[rjob]

Coating might be powder coating. Removal can be a bit difficult. First choice would be abrasive blasting. Second choice Rustolem aircraft finish remover.

 

[boykjo]

Leave it. Sand prime and paint. The tank shouldn't get that hot. The fire box gets the heat

My 2 cents

Boykjo

 

[paticus]

Thanks for the tips. I tried more flames, and wire wheels with little results. However, I ultimately got it off with 4" stripper wheels. I ate through 2 of them, and it took about 2 hours. The disks worked really well on whatever finish this was. The majority of the caps will be cut out, so I'll save those for later.

I think ultimately I agree with boykjo that stripping the paint bare was unnecessary, but here we are anyways :)

 

[paticus]

For anybody else that finds this, the stripper wheels will disintegrate if you use them on an edge. If you have a flat-ish surface, they last a surprisingly long time. On the edges of the door cut-out, I had to make sure the rotation was spinning away from the edge. Otherwise you can kiss your $8 wheel goodbye in seconds.