Aircraft Paint Stripping in Australia: The Dry Ice + Crushed Glass Method

Who This Guide Is For

If you run an MRO facility, manage a fleet for a flying club, own an aircraft approaching a major repaint, or are handling pre-inspection strip work for a Part 145 organisation — this guide covers what the dual-media aircraft paint stripping process actually involves, what it protects, and what questions to ask before you commit to a method.

We operate out of the Central Coast NSW and travel for aircraft work across the Hunter Valley, Upper Hunter (including the Scone area), Central West, and larger contracts nationally. This is not a marketing piece claiming we do everything. It is a detailed explanation of how the process works, where it fits in an MRO or owner context, and what to expect when you request a quote.

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Why Aircraft Paint Stripping Is Different

Stripping paint from an aircraft is not the same as stripping paint from industrial plant, rolling stock, or structural steel. The tolerances and substrate sensitivities involved mean that the wrong method can cause damage that costs far more to rectify than the strip job itself.

Aluminium skin is thin and work-hardens. The fuselage skin on most GA aircraft runs between 0.6 mm and 1.2 mm depending on location. Conventional dry blasting with silica sand or steel grit at useful working pressures will remove measurable material from that skin — thousandths of an inch per pass adds up across a full aircraft. Repeat sandblasting across multiple repaints is a known cause of premature fatigue cracking.

Rivets and panel seams are exposure points. Abrasive media driven into panel-to-panel lap joints and around rivet heads gets trapped. Residual media in joints becomes a moisture trap and an accelerant for crevice corrosion — exactly the condition a pre-inspection strip is meant to expose, not introduce.

Composite panels behave differently to aluminium. Modern GA aircraft and virtually all rotary-wing platforms mix aluminium structures with fibreglass fairings, carbon-reinforced control surfaces, and GRP radome panels. Each substrate has a different response to abrasive media and to the thermal cycling that dry ice blasting involves. A single operating parameter across mixed substrates is not correct practice.

Chemical strippers leave their own problems. Methylene chloride-based strippers work but the health, safety, and environmental compliance burden is significant. NMP-based alternatives are slower and still require full chemical handling, neutralisation, and waste disposal. Residue contamination in joints and around fasteners is a persistent issue even with thorough washing.

Manual scraping and heat guns are slow and inconsistent. For small spot areas or trim work, hand methods are fine. For a full fuselage strip or a fleet of aircraft, the labour hours make them uneconomical and the consistency of result across a full airframe is difficult to guarantee.

The dual-media dry ice and crushed glass process sits between the extremes — more effective than chemical stripping alone on multi-layer paint, gentler on substrate than conventional abrasive blasting, and workable in a hangar environment without the chemical handling infrastructure.

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How the Dual-Media Process Works

Note: This is not pure dry ice blasting. It is a combined process: dry ice blasting for thermal shock and surface disruption, followed by crushed glass media for controlled abrasion to lift the paint bond. Both media streams are used; only the crushed glass leaves secondary waste.

Step 1 — Assessment and Masking

Before any media touches the aircraft, we assess the airframe. This means identifying:

• Substrate types across the aircraft (aluminium, fibreglass, composite, acrylic windows)
• Number of paint layers and approximate condition of each
• Presence of filler or corrosion-inhibiting primer that the client wants preserved
• Areas to be masked: windows, pitot tubes, static ports, antennas, avionics bay drain holes, landing gear microswitches, wheel wells requiring a different approach

Masking is not a five-minute task on an aircraft. Done properly, it protects areas the client does not want stripped and protects airframe openings from media ingestion. We use combination masking — foam plugs, tape, and rigid covers depending on the opening type.

Step 2 — Dry Ice Primary Pass

Dry ice blasting uses CO₂ pellets accelerated through a pressurised nozzle. When the pellets hit the painted surface, two things happen simultaneously:

Thermal shock: The surface temperature drops sharply at the impact point. Paint and primer have a different coefficient of thermal expansion to the aluminium substrate beneath. That differential causes micro-fracturing and adhesion failure at the paint-to-substrate interface.

Kinetic impact: The pellets themselves impart a physical blow that disrupts the loosened paint layer.

The result is that the outermost paint layer — particularly topcoats, which are more brittle than flexible primers — begins to lift and flake.

The critical point: dry ice blasting alone is highly effective for removing surface contamination, exhaust staining, oil residue, light soiling, and loosely adhered coatings. It is not sufficient on its own to reliably strip modern aircraft topcoats that have been applied to spec and properly cured. The adhesion on a well-applied polyurethane topcoat over chromate primer is stronger than the cleaning action of dry ice alone can break.

After the dry ice pass, the CO₂ sublimates entirely — no liquid, no residue, no cleanup from the dry ice itself.

Step 3 — Crushed Glass Secondary Pass

Crushed glass media is introduced where the dry ice pass has disrupted but not fully lifted the paint. This is the abrasive phase.

Crushed glass differs from the silica sand used in conventional sandblasting in two important ways:

Particle shape: Silica sand particles are angular with sharp edges that cut into substrate surfaces. Crushed glass particles, while still irregular, have rounder profile edges that abrade without the same cutting action. The result is paint removal with lower substrate removal.

Hardness: On the Mohs scale, glass sits around 5.5 compared to quartz at 7. That difference matters when working against aluminium at approximately 2.5–3.0 Mohs — you want to move paint, not substrate.

The crushed glass pass is done at controlled pressure and standoff distance, with the operator maintaining consistent movement to avoid dwell effects in any one area.

Step 4 — Media and Debris Cleanup

Dry ice leaves nothing. The crushed glass does not sublimate. Stripped paint particles, primer dust, and spent glass media collect on the hangar floor and on any horizontal surface of the aircraft.

Cleanup involves:

• Vacuum recovery of media and paint debris from the floor and aircraft surfaces
• Inspection of all masked areas and removal of masking
• Visual check of the stripped surface for any remaining paint in recesses or around fasteners
• Spot re-treatment of any areas with residual coating

The glass media and paint debris are bagged and disposed of as general industrial waste — no hazardous chemicals, no special waste stream classification required beyond normal paint waste protocols. This is included in our site scope and quoted accordingly.

Step 5 — Condition Report

Before the aircraft goes back to the client or MRO for inspection, we provide a written job report detailing areas treated, media used, operating parameters, and a photographic record of before/after condition. This is formatted to support your maintenance documentation, not to replace it.

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What the Process Preserves

Aluminium skin thickness and surface integrity. Because the abrasive phase uses crushed glass at controlled parameters rather than hard angular grit, substrate material removal is minimal. The skin comes off the job visually clean, dimensionally unchanged, and ready for inspection without concerns about induced fatigue.

Panel-to-panel gaps and lap joints. The process does not drive media deep into lap joint seams the way pressurised abrasive blasting does. Joints are inspected post-strip and any debris is vacuumed — the MRO inspector gets a clean joint to assess, not one packed with foreign material.

Rivets. Rivet heads are treated with the same parameters as surrounding skin. There is no peen effect on rivet heads of the kind that can affect rivet pre-load in aggressive blasting processes.

Primer layer (where specified). If the client requests a topcoat-only strip to preserve the existing chromate or epoxy primer, the process can be tuned to reduce abrasion depth. This is not a guaranteed outcome for every primer condition — heavily chalked or partially delaminated primer will come away regardless — but where the primer is sound and the topcoat is the only target, a selective strip is achievable.

Masking-protected markings and stencils. Registration marks, LAME-applied stencils, and structural limitation markings that the client wants preserved are masked before commencement. Once masking comes off, they are untouched.

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What the Process Removes

• Acrylic and polyurethane topcoats in single and multi-layer applications
• Old registration markings and livery (unmasked areas)
• Filler and spray putty used to fair surface imperfections
• Corrosion-inhibiting primer, if the scope calls for a bare-metal strip
• Accumulated contamination and exhaust carbonisation in the same pass

Multi-layer paint systems — aircraft that have been repainted over the original finish multiple times without a prior strip — take longer and are quoted on a scope-and-inspect basis. The condition of the underlying layers is often unknown until the first layer comes off.

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Australian Context

CASA and MRO Alignment

We are not a CASA-approved maintenance organisation. The paint stripping service is a surface preparation function, not a maintenance action in the regulatory sense — the same way a tyre shop preparing an aircraft wheel rim for balancing is not performing a maintenance release function.

The MRO facility or LAME holder responsible for the aircraft incorporates the strip work into their documented maintenance procedure and issues the maintenance release covering the work. Our role is to deliver a clean, documented strip to the standard their procedure requires.

We can provide:

• A written job report with parameters, media specifications, areas treated, and photographic evidence
• Evidence of the media used (glass media technical data sheet and CO₂ pellet specification)
• On-site consultation with the responsible LAME or MRO QA manager before commencement

What we cannot provide: maintenance release documentation, form one equivalents, or engineering approval for process parameters. Those remain with the qualified maintenance organisation.

Where We Work

Our base is the Central Coast NSW. Aircraft work takes us regularly into:

• Hunter Valley and Upper Hunter (including Scone, Muswellbrook, Singleton airfields)
• Newcastle and Williamtown precinct
• Central West NSW (Orange, Dubbo, Parkes — distance-dependent)
• Sydney metro general aviation fields (Bankstown, Camden)

Larger contracts — fleet strips for flying clubs, multiple-aircraft MRO jobs, or defence-related work — we quote nationally. For a single-aircraft job at a remote location, mobilisation is a real cost that we account for transparently in the quote.

No Chemical Disposal Burden

Regional MRO facilities and flying clubs not near a licensed chemical waste disposal facility often face a logistics problem with traditional chemical strip methods. The dual-media process generates no chemical waste. The secondary waste stream is paint debris and spent glass media — manageable as general industrial waste at any facility with a standard waste skip. For operations in regional NSW without convenient access to chemical waste contractors, this is a practical advantage.

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Typical Scope and Pricing

Pricing for aircraft paint stripping depends on: the type and size of the aircraft, the number of paint layers, the presence of filler or corrosion primer, the location, and whether the scope is a full-aircraft strip or targeted areas only.

The following ranges are indicative starting points for scope discussion. Every job is quoted individually after a basic scope assessment.

Aircraft Type	Scope	Indicative Starting Price
Single-engine GA (Cessna 172, Piper Cherokee class)	Full fuselage strip, wings, tail	From $2,500–$4,500
Twin-engine GA (Piper Seneca, Beechcraft Baron class)	Full strip	Quoted on scope
Helicopter (piston/turbine, Robinson to Bell 206 class)	Full strip	Quoted on scope
Agricultural aircraft	Full fuselage + spray gear surrounds	Quoted on scope
Turboprop or larger commercial	Full strip	Day-rate basis

Quoted price includes:

• All media (dry ice pellets and crushed glass)
• Site setup and masking materials
• Secondary waste (glass media and paint debris) bagging and removal from site
• Written job report with photographic record

Quoted price does not include:

• Travel and accommodation for regional/remote locations (quoted separately)
• MRO documentation, engineering assessment, or maintenance release
• Corrosion treatment, priming, or paint application

Clint is actively building out the full equipment suite for larger aircraft work. Full-aircraft quotations on turboprops and above are scoped individually to ensure we can commit to the timeline and resource requirements of the job. If you have a larger aircraft job in view, contact us early — we will tell you honestly what we can commit to and when.

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Requesting a Quote

To give you an accurate quote, we need the following information:

1. Aircraft type and registration — make, model, and VH registration or military serial if applicable
2. Scope of work — full aircraft strip, fuselage only, specific panels, spot areas
3. Paint history — how many times the aircraft has been painted, whether any filler work has been done, whether the existing primer needs to be preserved
4. Location — airfield, hangar availability, and whether the aircraft is AOG or in service
5. Timeline — target completion date and any constraints (scheduled inspection, paint shop booking)
6. Special requirements — if this is MRO-integrated work, the name of the responsible LAME or MRO QA contact so we can coordinate documentation from the start

We respond to enquiries within one business day. For jobs in the Scone/Upper Hunter region specifically, we are familiar with the operational context and can discuss mobilisation options directly.