Has Anyone Stripped and Repainted Steel Tanks?

[Gilldiver]

Most of the "Aircraft Stripper" are usually a methylene Chloride based material. If so, it is safe on all metals including steel, aluminum, titanium, and magnesium.

If it has benzyl alcohol we do not allow for its use on high strength steels due to the potential for hydrogen embrittlement. But for tanks this should be almost impossible as you just don't have the soak time and the surface is easily cleaned. If you do want to avoid any possibility of hydrogen embrittlement you could do a post bake within 24 hours at 250F for 6 hours.

I do not recommend the use of any alkaline strippers for any tanks due to the corrosive nature of the sodium hydroxide chemistries.

I need to correct myself, where I refrence benzyl alcohol above, it should be benzoic Acid and derivatives.

Aluminum is not subject to Hydrogen embritlement but high strength steel fasteners are. So the post above is not quite correct, but the end result is. For aircraft we avoid all acidic strippers (the trigger pH seems to be about 4.5 and lower, but for safety just about anything bellow 7 is not used) due to the potential problems with entraped chemistry around high strength steel bolts, parts, and assemblies such as landing gear.