I'm working on a 49 Mercury. The interior window frames have a plastic Mercury emblem some of the original paint has flaked off. I'm trying to remove the rest but don't want to cloud the plastic. After it is removed I could re-spray to make it look right. Anyone have experience with this ? Sent from my iPhone using The H.A.M.B. mobile app
When we were kids I recall my brother reading about using brake fluid to remove paint from plastic models, so we tried it. It worked pretty well I think. The cost of the fluid was steep for kids back then.
A bit over 10 years ago I was on a kick to de-chrome and de-emblem my OT Chrysler. I had a few second level acrylic emblems, that had to remain, with multi-color paint and chrome on the back side. My idea was to remove the paint and the chrome graphics shaped into the back and repaint the backside with paint to match the body. I saw brake cleaner and Easy Off oven cleaner recommended online, neither of which I tried. I had some acetone on hand so I used that. The paint came off quick and easy but the chrome was tougher than bear meat. I had to soak, rub and scrub the reverse relief chrome letters 8 to 10 times with rags, old tooth brushes and frayed tip wooden toothpicks in the corners while soaked with the acetone. The plastic did get a superficial, cloudy haze but with a little rubbing with a rag just dampened with the acetone, the plastic cleaned up clear and polished. Now these were new plastic emblems, not 70 year old survivors. I suggest that whatever you use, test it on the outside, top surface first (because that's the easiest place to re-polish if any damage is done). Start with the gentlest product first, like maybe "Goof Off" and only something stronger such as the acetone if needed. An extreme solution would be to take some casting silicone impressions for casting new clear emblems.
you could try your finger nail or razor blade scraper?,or even one of the eraser wheels that are for stripping off pinstripes on cars,3M makes them,other companies do too.or even try some wet sandpaper,start coarse and work your way down,that would propably work with some effort. Good Luck
Great thread. I have a Chevelle horn button I want to do the same thing to, remove all the gold paint from the lettering, only I want to repaint mine gloss black so the button will still have that "enclosed paint under glass" look. I don't want the lettering to show. I know I could paint the topside, but I'd rather paint the bottom side so the top still looks original.
On model cars we use Castol Super Clean to strip paint, there are commercial model products too. Oven cleaner is another method. I would practice on something first if possible, not knowing what plastic you have there.
Looks nice, and a very useful thread to follow. Carbon tet was great-but only if you had a spare liver in stock.
I love happy endings. That plastic looks like it has some life left in it. It's from back in the days when plastic was used to make little jewels in a car and not make the whole car out of plastic like what happens now.
I agree it looks good as is, as was mentioned earlier it is the chrome paint that is really tough to remove. I assume that the silver mercury is the paint I am talking about. I have a ford emblem am working on, same deal. The outside paint almost fell off, while the silver paint on the lettering I really had to work at. Been using sharply pointed objects that probably should not be playing with to do it. I have 99.5% removed, but still more work ahead.
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