Removing paint from clear plastic

Tools, Techniques, and Reference Materials Painting and airbrushing
1

I am working on a Monogram B-24J and made a mistake in painting two turrets.

I used Eduards precut masks, but I must have minunderstood the directions because I accidently painted the tops of the turrets. I used Tamyia rattle can lacqure paint.

Whenever I made a mistake painting a model part in the past, I have always used Purple Power to remove paint. Just drop the part in a container of PP and in a couple of hours the paint just peels away.

I can’t just drop the turrets into a container of PP because that would remove all of the paint and get into the inside of the turret. So I cut a paper towel into small strips and placed the paper on top of the paint that I wanted to remove. I soaked the paper in PP and waited a couple of hours. Every 15 minutes I put more PP onto the paper.

A tooth pick was trimmed into the shape of a chisel. After the paper was removed I scraped away the softened paint.

Before and after shots. Problem solved. I am not sure that Purple Power would remove enamal and acrylic paints, but it does work on lacqure.

2

Looks good, I am building the same model and using the Eduard masks. Which masks do not cover it? I would like to know so I do not make the same mistake.

3

You sir , Are a Genius !!!

I never would have thought of using a paper towel to “concentrate” paint remover, ( or , in this case, Purple Power ) to a pin-point location on a part.

( I can “Guarantee” that I will use this trick … repetedly !)

Thank you for Posting this !

4

I also use Purple Power as a paint remover.

5

That was a very clever idea. [Y]

I would have thought laquer based paint would have crazed the clear plastic. Also, though I have used purple products to strip acrylics, I didn’t know they worked for oil based.

Thanks, interesting info.

6

The top of the front and rear turrets are the problems. Eduard recommends using a liquid mask on the tops of the turrets. Blue masking tape would work just as well.

7

I’ve done the same kind of pinpoint paint removal, on a 1/20 scale figure’s face. I messed up one eye:

but I didn’t want to strip the whole piece and start over. So I used a paintbrush and SuperClean (my paint remover of choice) to remove just the bad paint:

and then I could do her eyes over again (beg pardon for the poor lighting!):

8

That’s a good fix. Removing all of the paint just to repair the one eye would be a shame.