Hi All, I'm getting ready to do a custom paint job on a Concor observation car. After disassembly I see that the roof and clear observation dome are all one piece made out of clear plastic. My question is, can I strip the paint off the roof without destroying the clarity of the windows in the dome by soaking the whole thing in 90% alcohol ? I've had good luck stripping paint on most car bodies with 90% alcohol but I've never tried to strip paint off of clear plastic before. If any of you have had luck with such a thing let me know your technique(s). If what I'm trying to do is impossible the project will more than likely still go through. I'll just have to paint over the existing roof paint. Not ideal but doable I suppose. Thanks, Brian
I experimented with 3 different kinds of clear plastic soaked in alcohol for 48 hours. It appears there is no crazing, discoloration, or fogging in any of the pieces. The plan will go forward to strip the paint off the roof of the observation car. Photo updates to follow if the project goes as planned. Brian
Update... I soaked the roof and body of my Concor vista dome car today in alcohol. The last series of cars I did took about 2 days of soaking to loosen the paint. Good thing I checked after 2 hours because the paint was already falling off. After 4 hours and a little bit of scraping with a toothbrush, paper towel, and a toothpick here's what I have. The clear plastic shows no signs of deterioration from the alcohol. (Yea!) Now for the hard part, paint. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to mask off all those tiny little windows in the dome. Probably start with some cellophane tape and a sharp knife followed up with a spray of clear coat to seal up the edges. New question, if the clear coat oozes under the tape what might it do to the window clarity?? Another option would be to coat the whole dome with some kind of water soluble medium, then scrape clean the partitions between the windows before paint. Then wash off the masking medium after the paint cures. Any suggestions??? Brian
It seems to have worked well. My worry was the clear plastic would end up with some amount of cloudiness.
How bout some contest as to what I'm trying to do: Here's what I started with: Here's what I want to end up with: I'm a bit reluctant to post my grand plan as my painting skills are pretty ugly. If the progress doesn't turn out too sophomoric I'll continue to post updates. Brian
Finished the project. you can see the results at: http://www.trainboard.com/highball/index.php?threads/n-scale-whats-on-your-workbench.45048/
