After completing 90% of the weathering process--base coats, washes, pin washes, gloss coats, more washes and filters, etc, I need to strip a kit. Normally I'd throw it in a bag filled with oven cleaner, but here's my conundrum. Since I now have every base of paint possible on the kit due to the weathering process, is there anything obvious I need to worry about? Clearly the oven cleaner will take off the oil based paints (enamels, artist oils), and denatured alcohol will strip the acrylic and hobby lacquers. My concern is how to attack the layering issue. The majority of the oil paint is under a base of acrylic gloss which is under a base of artist oil washes and filters.

Am I other thinking this?

Hi Mark,

I thought I'd take a crack at this having been in that position before.

Typically you will get some residual paint that lingers with that many layers, but hopefully oven cleaner can cut through it all. I have had to do it more than once on a few kits that were stubborn, but if you happen to have some Tamiya layers in there, Windex cuts it amazingly well where scrubbing is not even necessary.

If you are insistent on stripping completely, oven cleaner is probably best, let it soak a while, use an old toothbrush and some gloves on help it along, but man the fumes are brutal. Never a fun task. Hope it doesn't have too much PE on it, definitely do it in a large aluminum baking tray or something that can catch anything that gets broken off, you can then sift it out to glue back on after.

However, I will offer this suggestion up too, as I have gone this route in the past. Judging the quality of the finish so far, meaning you have no pigments and the paint itself is sharp and tight, you can gently shift a color scheme to another one by overpainting. I had success with it as well. Just depends on what you want from it, perhaps it's an easy path to take. For me the deal breaker are the decals because they tend to be the hardest part to work around, even when stripping. Sealed and dried decals be really hard to get off if they are in tight spaces.

If you want to dramatically change colors than stripping might be best, but if you are in the same scheme or a similar range of tones then give a simple repaint a thought. It is definitely a much easy way to go, simply spray right over the early part. If not a contest model or the first efforts are really good quality, you tend to get away with a lot. Think of it like a massive post-shading effort, you might be able to incorporate some of what is on there still.

Good luck either way, we've all been there at some point in time.

Once you are clean and stripped, wash the crap out of it, then definitely re-prime, no matter what. Any residual cleaner will be cause unwanted issues on the repaint.

Best,

Mike
http://www.facebook.com/RinaldiStudio

Are you trying to strip down to bare plastic? If so, go to Walmart and buy a spray bottle of Super Clean (always sitting in the automotive section, comes in a purple bottle) and soak it in that. I haven't seen any paints yet that it won't take off except Krylon Fusion. Try to remove any metal parts before soaking as the stuff loves metal. After soaking for a couple hours, scrub with an old toothbrush and soak longer if needed. Be sure to wear gloves.

Brake cleaner, not brake fluid. No scrubbing necessary.

Super Clean will do the trick, but it's going to take a while with 47 layers to deal with. That must be some kind of record. There is no reason to ever have that many coats.

prime
painting including camo
gloss
decal
gloss
filter
flat
pin washes
local & general washes
dry brushing
chipping:sponge method
airbrush dust, mud, earth
Flat finish

Joel

First, thanks to all. I was being a little facetious when I said 47 steps, but I still had multiple layers of coatings laid down.

I am looking to strip down to bare or at least primed plastic at this point not because I didn't get the effect I wanted, but because a turret basket was smashed off when a rather heavy photo album fell on the kit.

The level of damage is forcing some drastic repairs, which will end up with a paint mismatch given all the layers involved.

So, on the subject of PE: I'm ok with PE coming off, but not ok with it getting dissolved. Are there any paint strippers I need to worry about?

I'll probably remove the PE just to be safe...

Mark, I've never heard about any issues with Super Clean attacking plastic, but all solvents will have some effect on glue.
Joel