What Temperature Can You Use On Plastic Rolling Stock?

Bob,

I really wouldn't suggest putting plastic in any oven - too many internal stresses in plastic just waiting to be set loose by a little heat!

A friend of mine thought that a cardboard box with a small light bulb would be a safe way to "bake" the paint on plastic models at about 150 degrees. He even included an accurate thermometer in the set-up. He said when the temperature got up to about 130, he discovered that he was very wrong!

Jim

Thanks guys!

I recall when I was a kid I left my prize toy German Luger in the back of my dads car, sitting on the top of the rear window ledge.  Warped beyond repair

I don't know what MTH uses as a finish on their cars, but it's tough.  The silver paint on the inside came right off, revealing a nice white plastic, the outside finish could withstand a nuclear attack!  the lettering is still visible, but it looks like a shadow on the surface.

I haven't tried the alcohol, but I'll be looking for it next time at the pharmacy (seems like I go twice a week to  pick up prescriptions)

Next up is one of the Weaver cars.

how old is the ps1 boxcar? Items made in the early days of mth, I have never been able to remove the paint

They were among the earliest MTH premier freight cars.  The 20-9300 box car was in the summer 1996 catalog. I think the ones Bob has are from 2001 or 2003.

I hate to say it now but Bob, why strip a factory decorated Seaboard car?  Why not vandalize a more common car decorated for another road?  Something with a plain jane paint job would be easier to strip.

Ted,

Simple answer is it's not accurate.

The car in question is presently a Seaboard Air Line PS-1 boxcar, number 25054:

This class of cars did not have the "Silver Meteor" slogan on them, nor did they have black roof/ends.  The doors were also wrong so I made new ones.

I don't know how old it is, the item number is 20-93144, about $40 I think is what I paid for it.

I'm going to paint it with Floquil Boxcar Red and put the Jerry Glow decals on it.

I guess I could paint it all black, then paint it BC Red on top of that, but what little detail there is would probably get covered up by the thickness of the paint.

ALL the manufacturers need to stop producing these fantasy paint schemes and do a little research.  Heck, all they really need to do is contact the various historical societies, I'm sure they would be more than willing to help get the correct schemes on cars.

I've stopped buying cars if I have any doubts about the paint or type.  That's the problem with seeking knowledge when you're interested in a prototypical railroad.  Once you find it you may not like what you find.

In my ignorant bliss, when I first got into O-scale, I bought everything that had SAL on it.  Over half my fleet is SAL rolling stock.  Out of about SAL 25 cars, I doubt I have more than 10 that came with correct factory paint and lettering.

I've tried painting over manufacture-painted cars and they always show thru.  The black paint on this car looks really thick, I bet the detail will show up better once I strip the paint off and get some thinner paint back on.

Have you tried brake fluid?

Tom,

I have in the past and it seemed to work well, but I felt (nothing to back this up) it was making the plastic brittle.  I still have a bottle of it and will try that next if the E-O doesn't do the job.

I scraped some black paint off the roof last night and it's very thick, there's silver under it as well.  Now that I have some places down to bare plastic the E-O may do better.

If the paint on the roof and ends wasn't so thick already I'd go ahead and spray the car boxcar red now because I feel the silver sides and faded lettering can be covered without it showing thru.

I'm going to try the E-O on one of the two Weaver cars and see if the type of paint they use comes off easier.

Oh yeah...gotta remind myself to always wear gloves.  I did have gloves on but when I picked the car up to come back into the house I had already taken the gloves off.  Most of my fingertips started feeling slick like the skin was melting off

I finally got around to soaking the MTH car in 1 quart of brake fluid this past week.

Started Friday at 9AM.  At first I pulled it out every 3 hours to see what was happening, but soon realized it would take longer, so I left it in at 6PM.

I left it in the bath for about 16 hours, pulling it out Saturday around 10AM and only then did the black start to come off the roof.  I scrubbed it with an old toothbrush and put it back in the bath until about 8PM last night.  A little more came off along with some silver.

This morning around 8AM I pulled it out again and more came off.  I realized I need more brake fluid as only 1/3 of the car is submersed.

I'm using a glass vase some flowers came in, but it's really to big, need something a little less in diameter.  I'll have to buy 2 more quarts of brake fluid to make this work.

No noticeable affect on the plastic car after 50 hours of sitting in brake fluid.  If I get the rest of the brake fluid today I suspect another 24 hours and it'll be done.

So 80 hours to remove the majority of the paint from this MTH car.  The black is applied very thick to the roof and ends and under it is a coating of silver.  The inside was only silver and it came right off leaving the white plastic surface, I guess there's a protective clear coating on the outside so that's another coat that must be removed.  There may even be another black coat under the silver.

I'm going to try the Easy-Off on a Weaver car next, but if that doesn't star working within 24 hours then it goes in the brake fluid bath.

I've found that oven cleaner works a lot faster than brake fluid.  It hasn't damaged the plastic on the few cars I've used it on.

I dont mean to hijack this thread but my question is along the same lines. Does anyone know what will remove the chrome plating from American Flyer passenger cars? I asked this question on the S gauge forum but only received one response. I want to repaint these cars to match my AF bankers set.

Not a painter here, just been around them.  When chemicals are used let the chemicals set the rules.  Awhile ago I did a lot of work in commercial stripping and found that the product application instructions were there for a purpose.  I was forever wanting to hasten the jobs.  I fount that if their needful time bracket is truncated then mechanical effort is required which also exposes the job to possible damage.

Many of the things I screwed up in life were those which I hurried. 

Tom I think you have the correct answer, let it do its job!

John,

I tried the Easy-Off and nothing happened.  I've used it before too, on my WBB E7, a number of pieces/brands of rolling stock, and some die-cast engines with great success.  But it didn't phase this boxcar (it did take some of the silver paint off on the inside) other than making a ghost imageof the lettering.  The brake fluid is doing th job, but I should have immersed the entire car at the get go.

I stopped by Pep Boys on the way home from working at the golf course today and got 2 more quarts.  I should have it done by tomorrow.

Being I have 2 Weaver cars I may do one in brake fluid and the other in Easy-Off just to see which one gets clean first

After 80 hours in the brake fluid bath I took the MTH car out.

99% of the black is gone, but the entire car was also painted silver under the black and what looks to be another coat of black under the silver.  The inside of the car had what looked like a single coat of silver, came off down to the bare white plastic fine.

The outer black was very thick, now that it's gone the details on the car show better so I'm stopping here and will airbrush grey primer then Floquil boxcar red over what's still on the car (after I make sure it's smooth and clean).

I put one of the Weaver cars in the brake fluid around 3PM today and the lettering is already coming off, took about 2 hours to see it.  I'll leave the car in overnight and check it in the AM.

Just to let anyone know who's interested, I took the Weaver car out of the bath today and almost all the paint is gone.  Less than 48 hours in brake fluid with no apparent damage to the car body.

Weaver puts a much thinner coat of paint on their models.

I pulled the final car (Weaver) out of the brake fluid Sunday.  There's still some paint on the car, could it be the brake fluid loses it's potency?  I'd say there's 10% of the paint still on (ends and roof).

I'm going to try "Soda Blasting", following this article on making my own blaster:

http://www.aircooledtech.com/t...-cheap/soda_blaster/

I just finished making the blaster, just need to get some Baking Soda (all we had at home was corn starch!).

Harbor Freight makes a cheap soda blaster, but the local store didn't have them in stock.  Other brands are 3x to 5x the cost.