I would like to repaint a few cars: M-T, and C-C. What should I use, and what will leave me with a crumbling mess? Help!!
Believe it or not, I recently had an undecorated M-T reefer that I botched the paint job on (the can of reefer yellow was old and came out in globs!). At the suggestion received on the Atlas forum, I bought a can of "Easy-Off" oven cleaner, sprayed the carbody, put it a a plastic baggie overnight and washed it thoroughly the next morning. All the paint came off, none of the details were damaged (I had glued the hatches open). New paint job, with white primer, and Modelflex sprayed with an airbrush, came out fine.
hemi are the mt cars factory painted? the reason i ask is that mt cars are laser printed and will not strip alot of the big printing. many times it is easier to go over the original paint with a few coats and this will cover any existing paint schemes. also you might want to try pine sol, this is what i use on atlas and kato units and this may work decent.
Easy-Off oven cleaner, PineSol, and Brake Fluid, all work well on some paints. Bachmann has prepaired a product sold through Walthers called: Cameleon Model Paint Remover, for Bachmann paints. It seems to also work well on other paints as well. Laser printing, and hot-stamped lettering does not "come off" because it has to do with partial melting of the original plastic base surface. Rivarossi recommended light sanding with 600 wet, re-painting area, compounding, then painting for color, and light compound polishing. (Compounding is to use a soft cloth, (flannel) and polishing compound with water, and rubbing until shiny again.) There are several grades, and there is no wax in good rubbing compound. Professionally applied paint like for violins, and museum displays, are rubbed to remove tiny specks of dust that mar the surface when the paint has dried hard. (Hold an item up to a light and look at the glare on the surface up close and you can see the bumps, sometimes feel them too, on a fresh paint job. After rubbing, the same surface feels and looks like clean glass.) That is the mark of professionalism the museum docent looks for before displaying a piece. This can show up in close-up photos too!
Watash, I totally agree with you the compound polishing does wonders!!!!!!! I know this from a bad experience when I first started to learn to paint trains the pictures will show any defects you've made in a paint job if the proper precautions hasn't been taken!!!
