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Need Help Removing Paint

AppleGuy08

AppleGuy08

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 6, 2006
337
0
Sacramento, CA
Hey all. I did a little experiment on my PS2 the other night. I painted one half of its shell to see how itd look. So i left it outside to dry overnight. Long story short, i forgot that the delta breeze came back and a bunch of dust and crap dried with it. The paint is on plastic, and i need to know how to completly remove it. Does anybody have a specific way tht you know or use to remove paint? Thanks in advance.
 
Brake Cleaner could take anything off as iGav says, and have you tried Paint Thinner yet? either should work, but it'll be a long process.
 
Sandpaper. Start with a 300grid wetsandpaper and work your way up to about 1000grid.

Just keep in mind that thinner and other harsh chemicals might ruin the plastic.
 
I'm assuming the case is separate from the rest of your hardware so you're not risking messing up the internals, right?

If so, you've got a couple options...

Sandpaper, though be really careful about dust (you don't want to breathe them in, and you also don't want them getting into the rest of your playstation).

Paint thinner/remover... would work really well, but may not be recommended for use on plastic. Do NOT use acetone (nail polish remover) as that will ruin the plastic underneath.

Heat gun could work pretty well at getting "most" of the paint off, but in my experience, still requires quite a bit of work (ie. sanding or using paint remover) getting all of the paint off. Careful not to expose the plastic to more heat than is necessary to bubble the paint off, though the heat gun may be too hot to use as is.
 
if all else fails/ your trying to get the little stuff out at the end, you could try Isopropyl Achohol (also known ans Rubbing alchohol) it gets pretty much anything off.

Maybe nail polish remover? you paint is almost the same thing as nail polish
 
Always test a small area that isn't seen before putting chemicals on the outside. I'd guess paint thinner will melt the plastic.

As for taking the paint off, do you plan to reapply it? If you do, I suggest sanding it with 400, then taking a red scotchbrite pad and going over it after you've sanded it to your liking. Also, remember if you are reapplying, you don't have to remove all the paint.
 
Two more options,

Oven Cleaner or Castrol Super Clean (highly recommended within the plastic modeling community.
 
Alright. I talekd to a guy @ home depot and suprisingly he said that gasoline would probably work the best. So soaked the memory card shell as a test piece and it worked beautifully. The paint damn near melted off.
 
lol thanks for the suggestions everyone. I soaked everything in gasoline for a few hours. then i went out with a putty knife/scraper and went to work. most of it just scraped right off in big balls of goo. those ridges at the top and front of the ps2 are a killer though. Luckily i had an old toothbrush laying around and that worked great to get down in those grooves. now i smell like a chevron station :p
 
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