Stripping Floquil paint from a resin model

[Lemosteam]

I admit it, I am a crappy painter.

Old can of floquil, shaken Well, came out really, really thick and landed on the model that way too.

Brass parts attached, FUD roof. this is my X31f retrofit roof on a Fine N Sclale kit.

Not worried if the FUD roof comes completely clean, but I am worried about the resin casting and the CA used to build the kit.

What should do to strip this thing?

[peteski]

Hmmm . . .  for stripping resin I usually recommend Castrol Super Clean degreaser (or it might now be just called Super Clean), but it is caustic (Sodium Hydroxide aka Lye), so itmight affect the metal parts.    For styrene (and metal too) I usually use Scalecoat Wash Away pinat remover or Floquil/Testors ELO (Easy Lift Off), but I'm not sure I would trust it on those resin parts.

[nkalanaga]

"In addition to aluminum, lyes may also react with magnesium, zinc, tin, chromium, brass or bronze—producing hydrogen gas."  Wikipedia

Then there's this post from http://rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32449

"sc 'doc' lewis    
 Post subject: Re: Draino / Lye as a cleaner ??
PostPosted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:04 pm

Location: UT
   
I have stood by and watched this thread and I believe as the only eye care practitioner on the board, I must chime in on the seriousness of exercising caution in relationship to working with lye.

There are three true ocular (eye) emergencies:
1. an alkali burn to the eye
2. a central retinal artery occlusion (essentially a 'stroke' to the eye)
and
3. uhh, I forget (Sorry, Gov. Perry).

Individuals can recover well from acid burns to the ocular tissues because acid is slower to break through the cell membranes and irrigation can dilute the acid rather quickly. An eye suffering a alkali burn looks amazingly white due to the immediate chemical cauterization of the surface blood vessels, the epithelium of the cornea quickly dissolves and the burn continues into the stroma (main body) of the cornea with an opaque scarring following. The outcomes can be dire with the need for corneal transplantation and its associated complications being on the optimistic side and loss of the eye/vision on the other extreme.

People, if you are going to do this, be extremely cautious. Wear a sealing goggle with a protective full face shield over those. If exposure occurs, start constant irrigation and don't stop until emergency room personnel assume care. Do not go to a first aid center, or the company dispensary, or family doctor...your sight is precious and the hospital emergency room is best equipped to save what they can.

Sorry to be a 'wet blanket'.

sc 'doc' lewis"

[peteski]

Sorry to be a 'wet blanket'.

sc 'doc' lewis"

I should have wrote "will"  instead of "might".  I know lye attacks many metals, but lye-based paint strippers are widely used by modelers for stripping paint from polystyrene models.

[Lemosteam]

What about lacquer thinner or something along those lines?

[peteski]

What about lacquer thinner or something along those lines?

Lacquer thinner might soften the resin (if you want to risk it).

But if you could remove the metal bits (and strip those in any of the non-caustic strippers, even in lacquer thinner), then you can strip the reson parts in the caustic stripper without worrying about affecting metal.

I might also be overthinking this.  If you dunked and left the resin in ELO or in Scalecoat stripper for days, that would likely soften the resin, but if you just coat the paint with the stripping solution and let it do its thing on the surface, then scrub the paint off with a brush (and likely repeat this process few times), the resin should not be affected.

[Lemosteam]

Picked up some Scalecoat stripping fluid yesterday and worked great.  Couple hour soak with no visible impact to the resin, small effect on the FUD but repairable.  i probably soaked it a littel too long.  Might be some acetone in the mix.