For my SD9E project, I've had to strip the paint of the shell. There are various commercial products available that do this , but their effectiveness depends on the kind of paint used, be it acrylic or oil based etc.
Of course, if you painted something yourselves, then you know the brand and type of paint, and in such a case, it's best to use the paint remover that is recommended by the manufacturer of that paint. However sometimes you may want to strip the factory paint of a model, as is the case for me. Many commercial paint strippers don't seem to work with the paint found on older Athearn models, the old 'blue box' series in particular. A bit of research on the net shows that people have varying results with using products like 90% alcohol, or brake-fluid. As I could not find any 90% alcohol , I went for brake-fluid. Brake fluid comes in a few ratings, DOT3 or DOT4, it does not matter which one you use for our paint strip purpose.
Wear gloves when working with it, as if it strips paint, it can also strip your skin/or penetrate it causing health problems in the future. I've submerged my loco shell in the fluid overnight, about 16 hours in total, and then using a toothbrush (use the hardest you can find) scrubbing off the paint. I found it comes off relatively easy. I used an old cloth to dab off the remaining fluid, and washed the shell in soapy water, while scrubbing some more, and dried it. Below is the result after 5 minutes of scrubbing and washing.
I'm happy with this, and will now proceed to add the details I want to add, before painting it.
Of course, if you painted something yourselves, then you know the brand and type of paint, and in such a case, it's best to use the paint remover that is recommended by the manufacturer of that paint. However sometimes you may want to strip the factory paint of a model, as is the case for me. Many commercial paint strippers don't seem to work with the paint found on older Athearn models, the old 'blue box' series in particular. A bit of research on the net shows that people have varying results with using products like 90% alcohol, or brake-fluid. As I could not find any 90% alcohol , I went for brake-fluid. Brake fluid comes in a few ratings, DOT3 or DOT4, it does not matter which one you use for our paint strip purpose.
Wear gloves when working with it, as if it strips paint, it can also strip your skin/or penetrate it causing health problems in the future. I've submerged my loco shell in the fluid overnight, about 16 hours in total, and then using a toothbrush (use the hardest you can find) scrubbing off the paint. I found it comes off relatively easy. I used an old cloth to dab off the remaining fluid, and washed the shell in soapy water, while scrubbing some more, and dried it. Below is the result after 5 minutes of scrubbing and washing.
I'm happy with this, and will now proceed to add the details I want to add, before painting it.
Question, do you think if I was needing to remove paint from a more current Walthers model would the brake fluid harm the detailing on the car "it's a passenger car btw". And second question is the same but for older ConCor models, late 80's early 90's.
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