removing spray paint from plastic

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January 08, 2009, 04:15:38 AM

Is there a anything out there to take off spray paint from plastic with out melting the plastic.

i've used easy-off oven cleaner in the past to strip paint from model cars. spray it on and keep an eye on the stuff, once the paint starts to lift rinse it off with warm water. if i remember right back then the kits were all made of styrene,so i would try this on a area thats out of sight to see how it reacts with the plastic your trying to clean up. good luck.

The oven cleaner should work quickly on spray paint, I have used this method many times in the past. But as a caution, I encountered a few instances where after a plastic piece was stripped with oven cleaner I was no longer able to get paint to adhere to the surface. Lately I have been using brake fluid as a plastic part paint stripper and it seems to work just as well but it is a slower process.

Good luck with the project

Pat

with what Pat said. I've used brake fluid a lot to remove paint off old plastic parts (toy train cars) and never had any damage to the parts. If the plastic is colored and it's been applied after the part was formed it will affect the coloring. If the plastic had the pigment added before it was formed I've never had a problem.

MY dash has been painted all black and would like to remove the paint and see what it looks like underall the paint. How long have you guys had to let thinks set in the brake fluid?

Sometimes weeks depending on the paint. I would be leary about using it on your dash especialy if it's installed. I don't know what material they are made out of but I don't think it's plastic.

Like Ski said the brake fluid process could take a lot of time depending on the type, thickness, and age of the paint you are dealing with. If the piece you are working with was spray can painted the process should only take a day or two and an occasional scrubbing with an old tooth brush might speed things along a bit. Do you have the gauge cluster disassembled down to just the plastic face? If not you will need to do so otherwise either chemical will do damage to the paint on adjacent surfaces.

I did an old Barracuda gauge cluster faceplate last year and I used the oven cleaner method because it was covered in about four layers of paint. So far the paint I put on it after the stripping job has held up well. I tried to monitor the progress of the oven cleaner so as not to leave it on too long in hopes of avoiding the problems I had in the past when it came time to repaint the stripped pieces. Perhaps you can test the oven cleaner on the back of the panel then try painting that area to see if the paint holds up. In those cases where I had paint adhesion problems, even after a couple of weeks cure time the new paint would just peel off with your fingernail. If your test paint job last longer than that I would believe you could get away with the oven cleaner method.

Pat

Oven cleaner, a toothbrush, Chemical resistant gloves, and goggles (very important). I have also used Simple Green and Purple Power in the past, its good at stripping paint and chrome. Aslo, bleach will strip chrome, but not paint off plastic.