"Stripping Kato cars; A five year old; and bedtime...."

[Puddington]

Puddington's "New" rules for stripping cars....(do not try this at home)

1. Always use caution; wear required safety equipment when using Floquil paint stripper (Check !)
2. Carefully disassenble the Kato observation car (Check !)
3. Remove skirts with a new number 11 blade (Check !)
4. Pour stripper in your holding tank; place car in tank, close lid; set timer for 2 minutes (Check !)
5. Hear five year old cry (in his bedroom) as he falls out of bed (Check !)
6. Realizing wife is out, run up to comfort five year old (Check !)
7. Spend better part of hour getting five year old to bed, while not hearing little timer in workshop two floors down. (Check !)
8. After getting five year old to bed; forget what you were doing; watch old movie and turn in at midnight (Check !)
9. Get up feeling refreshed; put on coffee; make breakfast; respond to innocent question from wife about what you will do with the couple of hours of free time today as she is going out and son is at a birthday party... respond you will work on the Obs... um......ah..........'excuse me"..........!!!!!!!!
10. Run to workshop; cringe as you open stripping container (approx time in bath - 14 hours)
11. Gently remove Kato observation car and watch in horror as plastic "explodes" in your hands, leaving 50 odd shards of former Kato UP Observation car shell on workbench and floor.....
12. Quietly return to kitchen and add 1 shot of Brandy to morning coffee and contemplate a trip to the Kato parts page in vain hope of a replacment shell.........

Not a really good start to the day...and a wee bit expensive............ :-[

[Wlal13again]

Been there, done that, except mine was an SD45 shell. I feel your pain....

[Frank Amato]

I've never been brave enough to use anything but 91% isopropyl on Kato shells.  It's slow -- soak, brush, repeat -- but safe.

  Frank

[Bob Bufkin]

I got an extra 4 cars set for the BWL.  I want to just remove the car names and redo them.  Anyone got any suggestions on removing the names without messing up the paint underneath!

[up1950s]

I used household stripper to rid the glop that Athearn dipped their 65" mill gons with . I thought the whole car was metal . I thought wrong . In a very short time the task was done , and the brake stanchion and its wheel , along with the under floor 3 brake blobs were nowhere to be found ............. melted away . 

[Puddington]

Micro brush with a wee bit of Floquil stripper - rub lightly for a few seconds with MB in the right hand, have a rag in the left, the names will come off in 10 seconds or so then wipe the stripper off lightly right away and wash with water.......I do it all the time and never have an issue.....

Or put it in a stripper bath for 14 hours and.........nevermind... :-[

[DKS]

I got an extra 4 cars set for the BWL.  I want to just remove the car names and redo them.  Anyone got any suggestions on removing the names without messing up the paint underneath!

Dip a soft pencil eraser in 70% alcohol. Rub gently. Rinse with plain water when the lettering is gone.

http://jamesriverbranch.net/project_10.htm

[wm3798]

Or put it in a stripper bath for 14 hours and.........nevermind... :-[

No, that's the recipe if all you want left is the lettering...
 ;D

I'm in the camp that sticks to alcohol for stripping.  In fact, in my experience, the more alcohol that's applied, the more likely that someone will be stripping!  Of course, if you wake up and all your clothes are in the yard, or worse, if there's a gigantic bra hanging on your dart board, you may want to adjust the mixture...

Just trying to be helpful.
Lee

[Bob Bufkin]

Lee.  You got to stop drinking Ed's cheap vodka, especially the stuff with the paint in it!

[wm3798]

Everything I learned about model trains I learned from my dad...

[Puddington]

Or put it in a stripper bath for 14 hours and.........nevermind... :-[

No, that's the recipe if all you want left is the lettering...
 ;D

I'm in the camp that sticks to alcohol for stripping.  In fact, in my experience, the more alcohol that's applied, the more likely that someone will be stripping!  Of course, if you wake up and all your clothes are in the yard, or worse, if there's a gigantic bra hanging on your dart board, you may want to adjust the mixture...

Just trying to be helpful.
Lee

Perhaps Lee; if you'd been here you'd have been helpful; if you'd have brought the alcohol (knowing your tastes as I do) you'd have been really helpful; if ya'd have brought the "stripper" then we'd be talking " awesome dude" status... as it is I'll just have to think about you and the gigantic bra and giggle myself to the kato website to buy a new shell...........Puddy !

PS:...... ain't we got an old shot just like that..............too perfect !

[flight2000]

I'm a new fan of Pine Sol.  I was attempting to strip my first Kato shell for repaint and since I don't have access to the other items everyone recommends, I went with Pine Sol by default.  That and the 91% alcohol isn't sold over here (not that I've found anyway). 

Soaked a UP SD40-2 snoot in the pine sol bath for about 15 minutes, removed (with latex glove on  :) and scrubbed lightly with an old toothbrush.  The lettering came right off for the most part.  A few more short trips to the bath and viola, no visible signs of the UP.  I also noticed some of the gray coming off, so i imagine if I left it in longer, it would have stripped it completely.   No ill effects to the shell although it hazed the Kato jewel case I was using for the bathtub pretty good.  A thorough rinse with warm water, let air dry overnight and it was ready for paint the next morning.  No residual Pine Sol smell was left on the model(er) either.

Brian

[jmlaboda - RIP]

Strange... in viewing this thread at this time there is an ad for "Paint Striper Specialists."  Now that is just too odd!!!

[Walkercolt]

Pine-Sol and a Kato shell was a recipe to make plastic glop for me, with no soaking involved, just an old toothbrush. I've always found Kato plastic to be quite delicate to paint strippers, solvent glues, even some solvent based-paints. ELO is murder on Kato plastic, I've found. It makes it brittle and crumble. Brake fuild just dissolves Kato shells. 91% isopropyl alcohol should be available at drug stores("Chemists Shoppe's") for those across the big puddle. Diabetics are found of it for prepping their injection sites, and especially for insulin pump sites, and cleaning dialysis shunts and such. I've experimented with RV anti-freeze(propylene glycol) with some success on Life-Like shells. Proceed with caution in all cases.

[Nato]

  Yes a pencil eraser even with nothing on it will remove the lettering on first run of Onions Pathetic cars so it should work on the new Penskveinia cars. Old Arnold Rapido Shells ,this goes way back early 1980's, were similar to KATO. One FP-9 diesel was used in a train wreck scene affter it sat too long in Scale Coat Stripper. I use to be able to get "E Safe" a green liquid hobby paint stripper from westcoast dealers,this worked very well, but alas they seem to be defunct. Nate Goodman (Nato).