Jan4 Written by:tj-lee
1/4/2009 10:43 PM
I picked up a tip on a degreaser called Castrol Super Clean that can be used to remove decals from Bachmann cars without eating the paint and plastic. At that point I knew what to do and got some of this degreaser chemical.
But knowing what to do, and knowing how to do it, are two very different things. I do not have a vat to soak something as large as a Bachmann passenger car in, nor do I want to purchase gallons of what is, after all, a fairly toxic chemical.
So I started with Q-tips, laboriously dipping and rubbing and much to my surprise it worked! But it was very time consuming. So I tried to figure out how to localize the Super Clean to only selected spots while at the same time allowing the chemical to stay on the areas to be de-Xmased for a good 10 minutes.
Here's what I came up with.
I used cotton to cover just the spots where I wanted to soak the Super Clean and using an eyedropper put just enough of the chemical to wet the cotton.
10 minutes later I carefully, using tweezers, pulled up the cotton (you really don't want to get Super Clean on your skin) and then cleaned up the goo with Q-tips and then wet (with water) paper towels. The results so far have been good and the process very fast.
Super Clean has the consistancy and look of Windex (but DO NOT get this stuff on your skin!) so it will run, but the cotton kept it right where I wanted it with the bonus of absorbing most of the decal paint making only minimal residual clean up necessary.
I use it full strength out of the bottle. I sprayed it into a shot glass and used a eyedropper to wet the cotton that I placed over the (what I think are) decals making up the Xmas decorations on the Bachmann cars. The garlands, the wreaths, and the dreaded snow frosting on the windows. Also allowed me to take off selected areas of lettering so I was able to remove references to the North Pole and the North Star Express lettering. This stuff is very strong and I only would leave it on for about 10 minutes which dissolved the painted decorations but did not seem to touch the underlying paint.
In the picture above you see the original passenger car with Xmas decorations on top, and the Super Cleaned combo car below.
I removed all the Christmas decals and paint from the passenger, combo, and the "North Star Express" lettering from the tender.
Of course, now the tender begs for come new lettering. I think decals are probably the way to go as I don't think I have a steady enough hand to hand letter something like that. Have to give it some thought.
Certainly gives the train a very different look, and as I was running it today in 98+ degree weather it did not look so out of place.
eof
Tags: 2 comments so far...
Re: Removing Decals
Thanks for the great tip and process. I will have to give it a try!
rich
By rreiffer on
4/27/2010 12:17 PM
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Re: Removing Decals
Rich, thanks for reading my log. Let me know how the technique works for you. Good luck! -TJ
By tj-lee on
5/3/2010 11:35 AM
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