Removing paint without damaging what's under

[Flynn567]

This is for the people that have there UKARA

We all know that respraying sometimes chips ect

Is there a simple way to to remove to paint without damaging what's underneath

I'm asking for my G36 but it's a open question

(it's a nice G36 Craig the snot green has to go )

There is a guy on youtube who uses "

"
Any ideas or tried and tested ways?

 

[TPI]

what happend to model paint remover? on second thought`s may even have some in my shed... lol

Fairy`s good rubbing alcohol or pure alcohol (NO DRINKY IT FLYNN!!)

 

[Flynn567]

pure alcohol may damage the color of the plastic and is for drinking it I'm Scots Irish, Try Potcheen some time that will kill you

 

[TPI]

erm trying to remove the paint your gonna damage it... it`s kind of the point

and i`ve already met Potcheen to the delight of my inside`s

 

[Flynn567]

Can you get me some Potcheen for GZ :lol:

 

[Hibernator]

Fairy Power Spray should do it. Never tried it on plastic. but I have used it on a metal RIS.

The best bet is to spray a bit on the inside of the handguard, leave it for a bit and see if it damages it before doing the outside.

 

[Ian_Gere]

So I just discovered that the last ingredient of Fairy Power Spray is Sodium Hydroxide at < 1% and that stuff is also used to strip gloss paint from old doors and furniture, etc. Which set me to wondering, are the other ingredients doing little or nothing more than providing a good solvent for alkalis?

Do we have any budding/actual chemists, or friends of?

(C10-C16) Alkyldimethyamine oxides, CAS 70592-80-2, 1-5 %
Ethanolamine, CAS 141-43-5, 1-5 %
Phenoxyethanol, CAS 122-99-6, 5-10 %
Potassium carbonate, CAS 584-08-7, 1-5 %
Sodium hydroxide, CAS 1310-73-2, <1%

The reason I ask is because my 2nd hand SVD has such a thickness of horrible tan paint on the barrel that it doesn't disassemble properly. I'm loath to go at it with sand/glass paper, because I'm just too lazy, and I don't want to use Nitromors if I can avoid it, because I'm pretty sure that stuff makes it difficult to repaint metal it strips. I'm really not confident that Fairy can take such a gormless overdone paint job off, without doing it several times, but I do have a small amount of NaOH left over from a time that my sink was completely blocked.

 

[jcheeseright]

Sodium hydroxide I believe is the active paint stripping ingredient, give it a go at 2% concentration!

 

[Ian_Gere]

Yeah, i might give it a go. Potassium Carbonate is PH 11.5, but i can't remember how the PH scale works, like is it linear, logarithmic, or what, so how much K2CO3 needs to be left for how much longer to have the same effect as NaOH at PH 13-14. I don't even know if the weaker base has any effect on paint...

!!CHEMIST!!​

 

[CaptainSwoop]

An old thread but worth a comment.

There is a product called 'Modelstrip' it is a paste designed for removing paint from model kits, it won't damage plastic but it is messy.

Use an oven cleaning foam spray. It uses as posted above Sodium Hydroxide as its active ingredient. It shouldn't harm most plastics but test it first.

I use it to strip paint off model kits if I make a mistake with the Airbrush.

Put the part in a plastic bag, spray with foam' close the bag and give it a 'squidge about'

Clean off by giving the part a gentle scrub with an old tooth brush and rinse under tap.

Don't get it on your hands, it will do damage.

Acrylic paint will be off in seconds, enamel or celulose will take longer, test after half an hour.

 

[AK47frizzle]

Potassium Carbonate is PH 11.5, but i can't remember how the PH scale works,.

The general pH range is from 1 to 14.

1 being very acidic and 14 being very alkali.

7 is neutral. Anything above is alkali anything below is acidic.

Or you can be a pro and mix some of the acids along with a base to get it neutral or however acidic or alkali you want it.

Or you can mix acids but then you may get precipitation or spectator ions or an explosion. Kaboom. Or you may get no reaction what so ever like sodium hydroxide mixed with sodium sodium sulphate (I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE "PH" REPLACED BY "F", IT'S STUPID).

Or you can mix barium chloride with silver nitrate to get barium nitrate and silver chloride which silver chloride is the precipitate.

Yes, I am a whippersnapper.

 

[bornleverpuller]

Fairy power spray or dettol is what I use to get the paint off plastic miniatures and it leaves no issues.

 

[Ian_Gere]

The general pH range is from 1 to 14.

1 being very acidic and 14 being very alkali.

7 is neutral. Anything above is alkali anything below is acidic.

Or you can be a pro and mix some of the acids along with a base to get it neutral or however acidic or alkali you want it.

Or you can mix acids but then you may get precipitation or spectator ions or an explosion. Kaboom. Or you may get no reaction what so ever like sodium hydroxide mixed with sodium sodium sulphate (I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE "PH" REPLACED BY "F", IT'S STUPID).

Or you can mix barium chloride with silver nitrate to get barium nitrate and silver chloride which silver chloride is the precipitate.

Yes, I am a whippersnapper.

Yeah I remember that much. If you'd quoted all of what i wrote, you'd see that what I actually asked was about how the scale works, ie linear, logarithmic, or what? For eg, if I take 100ml of metal hydroxide solution at PH 10 and mix it with the same amount of metal hydroxide solution at PH 12, will the resulting 200ml mixture be PH 11, or is PH 12 100 times more basic than PH 10, so the mix would be much closer to 12, or maybe it's exponential to some other power? Maybe it depends on mols and/or the dreaded Avogadro's Number, rather than volume?

 

[CaptainSwoop]

pH is a Logarithmic scale.

 

[Ian_Gere]

pH is a Logarithmic scale.

Ah sh!t, that's hard maths to work out how to use just NaOH in place of a mix of bases then. Does that Modelstrip stuff say what %age NaOH it is? When you say foam, is it like that stuff that's for cleaning ovens?

 

[bornleverpuller]

When getting paint off plastic models I use either fairy power spray or dettol.

 

[CaptainSwoop]

Modelstrip is a thick paste in a tub, it is quite expensive but it can be used on 'mixed media' models that have etched brass and aluminium or cast whitemetal in their construction.

YOu don't need it to strip plastic.

Just get some spray foam oven cleaner. Mr Muscle is a good one.

Test it some where on a small patch of plastic that will be out of site to check it won't attack it.