Large Scale Central

Paint stripper for plastic?

Modeling
#21

Hans-Joerg Mueller said:

David M

Removing paint is a “using common sense and logic” operation. It starts with reading the labels of paint removers at the local wholesalers and retailers who carry those items. From HD to auto parts dealers. It’s one of those “not really rocket science” items.

AND don’t forget to watch the phase of the moon, it could make a huge difference.

Removing/stripping anything always works better under a full moon. There is more gravitational pull that could adversely affect the results.

#22

@D R You better believe it, I knew a girl like that once, Full moon and ……… …… ……

#23

I hadn’t realised that we also have budding astrological engineers here .

Had I known , I would have asked your advice before now about cures for me for a couple of things

  1. My master told me never to venture into sunlight otherwise I may disappear in a puff of smoke .

A side effect of this is I sometimes get people following me and carrying sharpened wooden stakes and giving me strange meaningful looks .

  1. When there is a full moon , my personal habits change , including feeling the urge to cock a leg up when going for a pee , howling at the big glowing ball in the night sky , and worst of all growing hair all over my body , head , between my fingers , and I get a really bushy tail . Some of my friends in the pack go round sniffing each other’s backside , and I get a strange urge to join them .

Anyway , must go , my master has just put my supper in my feeding bowl . Must eat it before any greedy relatives turn up and start unseemly growling and snarling matches .

By the way , after I’ve had my Bonio and Best Turkey Breast In Jelly , I go to my master and give thanks by burping in his face and he always pushes me away with a funny look on his face as though he didn’t like second hand food . Some people ! . It’s not as though I do what he does every time he walks past me , which is , well , scratches my chest which makes me feel , er , horny I think is the word .Then when I go and grab visitors around the leg to make friends I get called “Gerroff” and “Randy” instead of my proper name , Rex .

Awooo-ooo-ooo .

#24

Meanwhile back at the ranch…wonder how Tac is getting on

#25

tac has a sense of humour .

Mike

#26

Ah, tac also hails from a long line of vampires, according to his late mother, who called him a blood-sucking little parasite before packing him off to his grandparents in darkest Gogledd Cymru at the age of 3-ish.

We move on…it seems that there is a patented liquor of some kind, whose name momentarily escapes me, that is designed purposely for the removal of paint from plastic. Sadly, the informant remains somewhat doubtful about its name, but promised to get back to me if and when that happy occurance should transpire.

Whinemeal, I’ll try and obtain some ‘rubbing alcohol’ or whatever it is called these in these days of political correctness. Perhaps the actual name has connotations of frantic and scantilly clad young ladies feverously pounding on flaccid nether regions in darkened and scented rooms filled with gilded mirrors…or perhaps not.

Failing that, I’ll try wintergreen, and even good old white spirit, although here in UK the use of the descriptive ‘white’ leads to howls of protest among those less-than-white of the exterior tegument, implying that I am a rabid rascist, and should perhpas, therefore, called it ‘clear’ spirit.

We’ll see.

However, thank you all for the infomation and entertainment you have provided, either intentionally or otherwise.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

#27

I tend to be nocturnal myself, but I am not a blood sucker. But back along the lines of the thread, I have been told its best if I strip in the dark.

#28

Fred, of FT Trainworks uses a tub of denatured alcohol. Soaks the parts for a while, and the paint just comes of in sheets.

#29

The trouble with all this paint stripping is the different paints and the method of decaling used.
What strips one does not strip a different type.

There does not seem to be a ‘One Strips All’ without damaging a model.

Be nice IF there was a reference to what strips paint safely from each manufacturers models without problems without having to try a dozen different methods.

#30

'kay…well, I took my fading reputation in one hand, and a wadge of money in the other, and went around all our local dealers buying teeny bottle of de-natured alchohol - called methylated spritis here in UK. Why the rather coy buying spree?

Well, here in UK where almost anything can be bought on a street corner in some towns, de-natured alcohol is virtually a controlled subatance and requires a license to purchase in any kind of worthwhile amount, like, more than 1/3rd of a pint. Moreoever, it is dyed with a purple colouring to prevent it being used as a leisure beverage - the main tipple of those folks who live in cardboard boxes and so on. As it was, going into our major pharmacy here in town, I was questioned as to why I actually wanted to have it in the first place, and recourse to showing the head pharmacist one of my meth-fired/alcohol-fired Gauge 1 locomotives made her grudgingly agree to seel it to me - at a price of around $6.00 for a one-third pint bottle.

However, it DOES work on the paint applied to the model previously, although I have to admit that removing it from the many thousands of nooks and crannies found on a multi-panelled model of an Edwardian-era passenger coach is a high-level RPITA.

Thanks again to all who contributed to this thread.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

#31

tac, gee, purchasing the alcohol is an adventure in itself. A few lifetimes ago I worked on printing equipment, and we found that denatured alcohol changed the electrical properties of the alcohol based ink somehow. So we had to use pure grain alcohol as a solvent for the ink. The company had to purchase the alcohol in gallon jugs, since buying it in 55 gallon drums was impossible at the time, it probably still is. By the end of the day the print heads were clean, the ink was flowing properly and we were a bit happier about our lot in life.

:slight_smile:

#32

This is the UK, the country that your farforthers fought so hard to be rid of. Successfully, as it turned out, in spite of the Americans’ irrational ‘worship’ of the local royal family.

You have to remember that with the original Bill of Rights almost totally buried under subsequent self-serving amendments and ‘law-making’, things in general in this place fall under one general rule -

‘If it is not compulsory, then it is prohibited.’

Everything else devolves around this.

tac, turning off the ‘serious’ switch.

#33

Tac.

There are two types of Meths.
One you buy ordinarily anywhere e.g (B&Q) and one you buy that is PURE Meths…its stronger. I believe it is obtainable from some Farmers Suppliers stores…

…and by the way…you can even buy Meths in Tesco supermarkets…Wickes…B&Q but Chemists always run the law ragged before they will part with it…I had the same with IsoProp yet bought off Google, a litre of the stuff and an even larger quantiy is also available…no probs.
NO licence is required to purchase Meths.

Nanny State comes to mind tho!..

#34

Trouble is, unless you buy the isopropyl alcohol you mention - we use it in our Gauge 1 live-steamers - the makers of the more readily-available stuff put this yucky purple dye in to render it unpalatable to all but the most determined alky.

However, IF you use enough lemon in it it, it WILL take away most of the taste.

uh, so I’m told… :wink:

tac
Owatavaaltythinggardwhtsit…

#35

The ISOPROP I got off Google (UK) was clear…
Whuch reminds me. The silkscreen cleaner we used in the Briefing Office to erase the chinagraphed NOTAMS on the boards smelled slightly like Stolychnaya Vodka…No had the bottle to try it…('scuse the pun)!

#36

Not having the necessary license here, I rely on the generosity of fellow Gauge 1-ers to provide the necessary fuel, in return only for money and favours, one of which is the constrction and so on of Gauge 1 rolling stock that started this whole thread off in the fust place.

I’ve made a shallow barth to immerse one side of the coach in order to get the paint - tenacious stuff though it is - out of all the many thousands of nooks and crannies, grooves and inlays of this bl**dy coach. Seems to be working, too.

I’m more than happy to stick to my usual Canadian Grove smooth-siders for the rest of my life after this. No more fancy stuff for THIS boy.

tac
Ottawa Valley GRS

#37

tac,

Good to hear that it works as expected.

Not that it does you any good, I had a look at sources for de-natured alcohol, commonly used to thin lacquer by the woodies"". Turns out it’s very hard to get in TGWN, OTOH 95% and 99% rubbing alcohol (isopropyl) can be bought off the shelf at e.g London Drugs. Go figure.

#38

Tac,
Just let it soak, and the paint will go away from the details. To speed up the process, take an old toothbrush and scrub. It will help. Sounds like quite the adventure to buy the stuff!

#39

Coincidentally , I just stripped paint off using Nail Varnish Remover . Not your posh muck with oils in to give a nice finish and smell , just a 1/2pint bottle from Sainsbury .

That was Tamiya paint on an LGB loco .

I also took the trouble to closely examine an LGB loco stripped and repainted some years ago using brake fluid . No sign of degredation , but if it falls into a large heap of plastic ballast I shall let you know .

I must also relate the demise of an enamel mug which had its paint stripped by inadvertent overnight soaking . In Coca Cola .

Mike

#40

Craig & H-J - all done and dusted. Right now it’s hanging in the airing cupboard after a thorough washwon after all the operation that you dscribe have been did.

Tomorrow I can start over with the correct and no-longer available Post-war Southern Malachite green required by the gentleman for whom I’m building them.

Even getting a can of paint here is fraught with unecessary expenses. There is a ferocious HAZMAT shipping charge, since this paint, like the much-lamented Floquil original - has some kind of exotic content that the Royal Mail won’t carry, so although the paint only costs around $12.00 a [small] can, the courier costs a good deal more…

Pics will be sent to the usual helpers in that regard of the two so far completed can be verbally abused by the discerning among you.

Supper calls…

tac, ig, ken the GFT & The Exotic Coating Boys