Jeff, I grew up in the dad's a painter household. There are basically three ways to strip a car, and like mentioned, they are chemical stripper (easiest and messy), sanding with a DA (little more time consuming, fun and dusty) and the old sandblasting (easy, messy, but not chemically, though it is more destructive to other parts. I have never heard of anyone warping the metal with a sandblaster.) ????
IF you have the kids around all the time the stripper may not be such a good idea, unless you keep the water hose handy. Which you would need to do anyway to wash away all the chemical crap. As far as it being illegal in some areas, they make some that is enviromentally safe and its not that much more expensive.
But to get down to business, I'd just use the DA with some 60 to 80 grit paper. Be carefull not to dig into the metal. Those DA's will get up and kick some a$$. I personally like sanding. I have always found it fun. Call me wierd I know. But really, unless you are doing a show care there is really no reason you need to strip the blazer down to bare metal. If you have the surface preped well, the area clean, dust free, lint free, humidity and temp need to be right and allow each coat to dry properly for the specified length of time and what not (according to the manufactures rec's) you should be fine. Then dont wash it for 30 days with anything but water. Keep the water spots off of it. Lots of direct hot sun is best. Then if you really want to make it shinny, (providing that you added an extra coat or 2 of clear, you can then go back and wet sand and hi-speed buff it out to a mirror image.
The key thing here is the attention to detail on the prep area being clean, spray the place out with water to anchor the dust. Proper cure times, and the key number one thing.......
the type and quality of paint. Lacquer is real easy to shoot, dries fast and all that jazz, but isn't that good a paint. Enamal is a little stronger but requires more attention to detail, but produces better results. Then you have others like Polyeurethane and others like that whicg are a whole new ball game in themselves. Hope this helps a little.
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WARN**ing, Something winching this way comes!
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