Carson Paint Killer - live experiment!

[ChrisRx718 4470]

This is a bit of a favourite subject on TamiyaClub, if you run a search you can see loads of threads on 'how to remove paint safely'

So I finally found myself in this predicament after painting a Porsche 911 GT2 body years ago and making a right balls-up of it: 

To give this some context:
This is an original PIAA Porsche shell (hence the lower rear spoiler) and at the time I had sold the PIAA stickers and bought some Taisan ones as I preferred the livery. Turns out I lost the Taisan ones during a house move, so I had no decals and this bodyshell had not yet been re-released - so there were no decals for the lights, window trims etc. I thought I would paint these on the inside with black then go over them with the body colour (PS-3 Light Blue). It might look good from a distance but it always bugged me and as a result; I never actually finished this body.

So this shell languished on top of a wardrobe for the best part of 7 years, the re-released body came and went. 

At first I tried some of this:

Hycote Graffiti Remover

Which after using up half a can it had little effect: 

So I invested in some of this stuff:

Carson Paint Killer. Bought from Germany as I don't believe it is officially imported? Or something like that. I know you can buy the aerosol version, but this is somewhat more expensive (£18!). This cost me €9 from Germany.

I'm aware that this product is meant to correct slight imperfections and is not designed to completely strip an entire bodyshell of paint. I just wondered how far I could get with one can. If it's a disaster I can still use this body as a 'runner'. 

I applied the first coating by brush about 30 minutes ago, I'll keep updating...

 

 

[Mad Ax 9312]

I bought the spray-on version to take the ugly vomit green paint off an otherwise tidy LC40 body that came with a used CC01 a couple of years ago.  It became clear after an hour of spraying, waiting and scrubbing that it would take a short lifetime to strip the entire body, and I'd be scrubbing inside the recessed areas with cotton swabs for a few years before the result was acceptable enough to paint on.

OTOH, when I painted my Fat Fox body to go racing a year ago, I did a rather poor job of masking with liquid mask but this stuff sprayed on a bit of kitchen roll was brilliant for smoothing off the wobbly edges.  Just spray a bit on the tissue then scrub it over like sandpaper and the paint came right off, leaving a clean and sharp edge that I could spray my next colour against.

[ChrisRx718 4470]

@Mad Ax Quite right, this is the result after 1 hour of waiting and about 10 minutes scrubbing:

So I'm trying a new strategy, using some kitchen towel as a kind of 'blotting paper' to hold the substance against the paint for a while. What I noticed before was that the paint killer had dried up and pooled in some areas. Areas of pooling were very easy to just 'wipe' the paint off of.

Now we wait another hour or so...

[Mad Ax 9312]

You've got way further than I got.  I gave up when I had only got through a tiny layer of paint on the flat roof section.

The kitchen towel is a great idea - I do this using soap and washing up liquid to remove dried-on flies from motorcycle helmet visors, laterly also to remove dried-on weetabix from a toddler's tea tray

[Typhoon 13]

The one I have used successfully to strip a whole body is VMS Clean Slate.

I use Carson Paint Killer for smaller areas when the paint is fresh, or for bleeding past the masking.

[mtbkym01 4008]

Looks like the Revell Paint Remover bottle re-labelled?

[Problemchild 2149]

I used the revelle one on my neo scorcher and it came off really easy 

this is tamiya paint and it was protected from UV by the massive white decal over the blue

but then I tried the same process on my falcon rear wing (this is a kamtec shell and a non tamiya lexan paint) and it didn’t budge it

on the clod Buster and mad bull I used over cleaner in a plastic bag

 
 

but not tried on lexan

 

JJ

[ChrisRx718 4470]

Bit more progress this morning:

There is a problem though. I'm a little more than half-way through the bottle

And clearly, there's still more than half the paint to come off, particularly in the tricky recessed areas, around the front/rear bumper and that complicated front splitter.

Keep reminding myself that it'll be worth it but this is a lot of elbow grease to get this far. Soaking it seems to have zero effect - it needs to be agitated. Best tool I've found so far is a regular household scrubbing sponge - after trying a few dremel attachments, a toothbrush and a piece of cloth. 

I'm thinking that I'll just do my best to get rid of those awful body lines I did by hand, then paint it back the same colour (PS-3) as this shouldn't show up the imperfections. I've found some cracks in the body during this process too; so it's not as perfect as I first thought.

Sad times.

[nowinaminute 2815]

I use De-solv-it but even with that I get mixed results.

Here's a good result:



Here's a terrible one:





Note how it's perfectly fine where the clear windows were so it's not the remover damaging the lexan but rather some element of the paint staying behind, possibly in conjunction with the shell being slightly etched into. Sometimes the white residue wipes off easily but on this one, it was an absolute pain. You could get through it eventually with enough patience but as someone said already, imagine trying to get into all the nooks and crannies to totally remove it.



I've had the same experience with hard shells. Sometimes it comes off beautifully and other times I'm stuck with the white residue that can be anywhere from effortless to soul destroying to remove which is a pain if you're trying to restore a shell that isn't supposed to have paint on such as this old Nikko truck: