First time poster here with very basic knowledge of PC’ing

I brought in my four alloy rims to a local PC’er back in mid-Nov to get PC’d. He ran into issues with them. The color I chose was Bonded Black Chrome. His work area was somewhat contaminated thus causing my rims to have imperfections in them. His shop is basically a small storage unit. The PC’er deduced it was either contamination, his gun, or my rims. The imperfections looked like inkblot dimples beneath the coat. Some were more noticeable than others. He had them for a month and a half and told me he couldn’t guarantee that they would look perfect (i.e. without the marks) if he were to keep trying. So he suggested that he would chemically strip them down and re-sandblast them. He started to strip one down and it winded up looking really bad. All of the powder bunched up and turned into rubbery residue. It almost looked like he hit it with acid. But whatever he used, it started to strip the powder enough where one could probably sandblast it clean to powder again.

I was kind of at my wits end at this point so I got in contact with another PC place this week and asked if they could basically take over the project. The original PC’er didn’t charge me for any of the work (which should be the case since he messed up my wheels). Three of the remaining rims have one or two layers of PC and one coat of clear. The clear didn’t cure right – probably due to him using too much powder? It basically looks like a bunch of veins and wrinkles on it. The second PC’er calls me back yesterday to tell me it’s gonna take a SUPER long time to sandblast the three wheels and would wind up costing close $100-$125 a wheel. Would probably require finer sand or soda blasting, but they couldn’t even guarantee that it would take off the powder and may permanently damage the aluminum. So I get in contact with another PC’er who does PC’ing on the side and he says that he’s stripped powder before using Duplicolor Reducer. He tried aircraft stripper on some factory valve covers before and it didn’t do anything…but he said those may have had some kind of epoxy on it causing the aircraft stripper to not have any effect.

So at this point, my idea is to get with this guy in his shop this weekend to attempt to chemically strip the wheels. He has been very gracious to offer his time and knowledge in helping me out. If we’re able to do this successfully, I could give it back to the second PC place and they could sandblast it and then PC the wheels for me. They’re charging me $150 – $200 for everything (PC and sandblast). This other guy could PC the wheels, too, but he’s not sure if his oven is big enough for 18" rims, and I’d basically pay for just the powder. The other variable with him would be that he could only cure one rim at a time where as the second PC place has a huge oven to bake all four at the same time. And they have the powder already in-stock.

Are there any other chemicals/products that you guys have used to successfully to strip PC? We’re gonna start off with getting the Duplicolor Reducer and aircraft stripper, but I sure could use some other recommendations if you guys have them

I’m sorry for the long post. It’s almost been two months, and I’m stressed about the entire situation and ready to have some sort of resolve. My fear is since I don’t know much about PC’ing if my rims will be damaged after all this stripping and or sandblasting. And then there’s the issue of aluminum annealing if not done properly. I’ve read and seen the horror stories/pictures of rims cracking. Of course if I could do this all over, I would’ve just went elsewhere in the first place(i.e. second PC’er), but I wanted to give the first guy a chance since he’s trying to start up his business. Oh well…hindsight is 20/20.

TIA for any help, assistance, or guidance.