Warbird Information Exchange

I am working on a Ferrari 500GTB. I airbrushed the base and then used a clear high gloss enamel that made the car look like a semi dull red turd! I was thinking acetone or Wesley's bleche to remove the clear and paint? I have even considered using baking soda in my junk air brush (not the one I use for painting)? Any help or suggestions are appreciated!

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" excuse me stewardess I speak jive"

Believe it or not, I'm stripping an ancient 1/48th scale Otaki F4U right now. It's marinating in Easy-Off oven cleaner and it works great without attacking the plastic.

Test your Ferrari's plastic composition by spraying the cleaner on a bit of parts tree and let it sit for four or five hours. Then wash it thoroughly and inspect to see if the Easy-Off did anything to the plastic. Since your paint is fresh I would think a short bath in the cleaner would be sufficient. My Corsair was painted in 1979 and it's taken about three hours and two baths in cleaner to fully remove the paint. It may also require some light scraping with a soft tool (my thumbnail works perfectly). I've used it for both foreign and domestically produced models and never had a problem. One odd issue though--Easy-Off won't touch Testors flat black for some reason.?





The worn-out frying pan works great for a catch basin, BTW.

Acetone will work fine on a metal body DON NOT use it on a plastic model, it will melt.

If your stripping acrylic paint try Everclear (get it at a liquor store) or denatured alcohol Remember that its flamable. Soak it for a day or 2

Also Dot 3 brake fluid , soak for 2 days and toothbrush off.

Oven Cleaner works well as well. Just do it in a well ventilated space.

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Andrew King
Air Museum Director with no Museum to Direct
Open to Suggestions

Dude,
If I was gonna shell out for EVERCLEAR, I'd soak myself in it for two or three days, the model can take care of itself!!

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

, I use a good old product called ELO (Easy Lift Off) which is an American product. It doesn't attack the plastic and when I bought my bottle back in 1997 it was reasonably priced.

Cheers,
Ross.

I think I've used Wesley's to strip enamel from styrene. I can't see that it would harm the plastic since my dunk tank for resin parts is a clear model case that has had Bleche Wite in it for years with no damage.

All great ideas! Unfortunately ever clear is illegal in the state of Washington. However I've "heard" you can get some white lightning from the home town of Bob Barker, Darrington WA. BTW there was a thread about him in the hangar a few days ago.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=40015&hilit=bob+barker

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" excuse me stewardess I speak jive"

Ah yes, Darrington Washington, where lots of folks are very closely related-Several years ago a work based motorcycle group I belonged to (a few Milwaukee middle busters but a mix of everything else too) were out on a Summer Saturday ride and decided to stop in Darrington for a burger so we all (45 or so normal looking folks) pulled into a local drive in and went inside, it got VERY, VERY quiet and people inside started getting twitchy "Y'all ain't from 'roun heah is ya?', so we left and went elsewhere, gets lonely up thar in them woods a choppin' trees and such-

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

Scott..

Did you get your supply of Easy-Off from the cleaner who used it on that 767 plyon at AFW a few years back???

Bill

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Natural law. Sons are put on this earth to trouble their fathers.

Nope, and the CPN for Easy-Off is no longer active. The key to that affair was the weekend marinade before rinsing.....

Renewed hope! I've been meaning to ask this question myself.

I had a painting accident on a Williams Brothers B-10 a while back and everything I did just kept making it worse until I finally stuck it in a drawer to be forgotten about for 5 years. I started out with gray primer, which I should have known better. When I sprayed the yellow on the wings it obviously didn't cover. I tried a couple coats and then decided to hit it with white primer (or paint? I don't remember), then back to yellow paint. Then I masked the yellow and sprayed the blue fuselage, which bled right under the masking tape and onto my yellow wings!

I tried brake fluid and this is what it looked like after a week or so of messing with it. It didn't do a bad job of the actual paint but when I got down to the primer it didn't want to touch it. If I leave the fluid on there long enough it will soften it to the point where I can forcibly scrape it off but that's going to be a pain. I'm going to pick up a can of oven cleaner and give it a shot this weekend. I'll let everyone know how it comes out.

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, About 12 (or was it 13) years ago I built the Toko An-72P for a magazine article nd thinking I'd be smart I tried a new and innovative masking idea. It was so far ahead of its time it didn't work. What I did was spray the model in grey primer and then the underside blue. I then madked that off with masking tape and applied the tan upper surface cam colour. Next I masked off the the areas to remain tan with Maskol and applied the brown. I then again masked off the brown areas with Maskol and painted the green areas. After a day or so I removed the Maskol to reveal a total mess. What to do? My deadline was fast approaching and I had to do something pretty quick. I bought my bottle of ELO and brushed it all over the model. It brought the paint off very quickly and efficiently but also cracked the windscreen which I'd fitted and masked off. as I was trying to remove the windscreen a piece broke out of it and was swallowed by the carpet monster. I replaced this missing piece with some clear liquid (can't remember which one now) and called it inflight damage. As the An-72P is a maritime patrol version of the aircraft I said in the story that it had experienced an birdstrike; albatross at low level and high speed. When I got to repainting the model I had to do it freehand with a single action airbrush as that's all I had at the time and it turned out not too bad. I'll try and find some shots of it in my photobucket albums and put them up in another post.

Cheers,
Ross.

Man o man do you have a dilemma, Williams Bros. used (uses? as I understand someone new owns the molds) a weird, rubbery version of polystyrene and some of the chemicals used in different paint mixes reacted in strange ways with the plastic. I painted one of their kits (the FORD FLIVVER I think) and the paint (even tho correctly mixed and thinned) never completely dried staying just ever so slightly tacky! It did how ever attract every speck of lint in the house and I wound up with a plush fuzzy model. I wish you luck and perhaps someone else has had better luck removing paint from a W.B. kit.

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Don't make me go get my flying monkeys-

In my experience (two jars bought about 4 years apart) ELO makes styrene pretty brittle and subject to "crumbling". Had the cowling of a Hase 1/72 P-47D fall into pieces in my hand after using the stuff.

I really like EZ-Off. Just be sure to wear gloves, and use a toothbrush to scrape the old paint off ...

I'm going to find some styrene from the kit and throw some paint on and then do a test before I try it on the model. I'm sure there's at least some sprue left in the kit I could use. That way I'll know more about what the oven cleaner will do as far as removing paint and I won't have to worry about coming out to find a molten puddle of goo where I left the model soaking.

Ross - we'd love to see your An-72p.

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