How to remove Tipp-ex and paint from polycarbonate?

[Damo666]

I have some old rigs here, a few of which have had numbers and callsigns printed on them mainly with Tipex correction fluid.

In the past I tried to remove Tipex from plastics with Acetone but the end product was a dulled and cloudy finish. Nail polish remover seems to draw colour out of the plastic.

Have any of you Gurus got any recommendations to remove this stuff without damaging the cosmetic condition?

Thanks.

All the best,

Damian

[Paul Adams]

IPA Maybe, on a cotton bud.

I've used it on plastic and it doesn't seem to have any detrimental effects.

Best to try it first on an inconspicuous place first.

HTH.

Paul.

[Alistair D]

White spirit is also a possible here. It does not damage plastics nor evaporate quickly. Put some on a tissue and press it against the offending marks for a few minutes. Worth a try.

Al

[fetteler]

This stuff is great and will not harm plastic. It is almost certain to sort you out. .I use it all the time these days:

http://ecosolutions.co.uk/homestrip.html

White spirit will not touch Tipex and will have virtually no effect on dried paint as during the curing process polymerisation has occurred and (although it may have originally been) the paint is no longer soluble in white spirit.

Cheers,
Steve

[Damo666]

Thanks for the suggestions.

I did a fair bit of googling last night and read that oven cleaner is also a big hit, so I will also give that a go since I have some here.

[kalee20]

I'd try IPA, it does dissolve Tippex.

However, I've found that some solvents cause cracking of certain plastics! I was cleaning plastic meter bezels of label residue with either white spirit or IPA - forget which - and found to my dismay that the thing cracket right across. It wasn't because of too much pressure, and it certainly wasn't dissolving the plastic. The end result was a lovely clear meter, with a few cracks right across! And these were fullt-through cracks, not surface crazing.

[fetteler]

Yes, oven cleaner works a treat. It's the sodium hydroxide wot does it!
One warning - be very careful not to get any on exposed aluminium surfaces or parts as it (NaOH) eats aluminium for breakfast.

Cheers,
Steve.

Water if the item is left to soak for a while (a week or so) can also soften paints etc.

[Radio Wrangler]

Polycarbonate parts are sensitive to several solvents. The firm I used to work for used polycarbonate moulded board extractors. The usual cleaners in the plant were 'Inhibisol' and later 'ultraclene' before they were discovered to be environmentally nasty and got banned. One shoosh on a board and the extractors would disintegrate the next time any force was used on them. I'd stick to IPA/Meths

David

[HamishBoxer]

Oh dear David,think i still have a can of Ultraclene!

[Radio Wrangler]

Shhhh!

The safety elves will be along to smash your door down, take it out into the street and carry out a controlled explosion. This will of course bring about the release of the entire contents which is exactly what the whole thing is supposed to avoid but that's the way they work.

You'll be mentioning in public that you have a pound or two of tin/lead solder next!

David

[mickjjo]

I remember Ultraclene, We got through cases of the stuff when I worked for B.T. It destroys all known plastics, I always had a clean motorbike engine though...

Regards, Mick.

[Damo666]

Well, I thought I had some oven cleaner but didn't.

I then made a trip to my local home bargains shop and checked the cleaning agents isle. I ended up buying some "Dr Magic Oven sense" oven and barbecue cleaner for less than £1.50.

I worked it into the paint with a nailbrush and It worked a treat and has not had a detrimental effect on the plastic.

Just thought I would throw it out there should anyone else be in the same boat as me.

Thank you all for the ideas.

[fetteler]

Originally Posted by merlinmaxwell

Water if the item is left to soak for a while (a week or so) can also soften paints etc.

Are you sure??
The paint on the hull of my brother's boat seems to have survived for over ten years in the water! To say nothing of the paint on the gutters of our house and the car...

Cheers,
Steve.

[brenellic2000]

A dab of detergent in the water can help break down surface tension and lift, depending on the base material of course. Pure lighter fuel can release things which other solvents can't.

You used to be able to buy bottles of Tippex or SnoPake thinner - I have suspicion it was cellulose thinner... it was damned good.

Barry

[Bazz4CQJ]

Ha... always enjoy a "what dissolves what" thread

Tippex, like many other products, has been reformulated over the years; I think it was originally a chloro-solvent based product. I seem to recall the "Homestrip" stuff coming up on here before, and by tracking down their identical professional product, finding the MSDS and hence its primary constituents (IIRC tri-ethyl phosphate).

It amused me greatly when the Americans had to go to great trouble and cost to replace the CFC refrigerants in their nuclear weapons systems. Not that it matters; when the methane hydrates under the arctic boil off in only 10-15 years, all the eco worries to-date will pale into total insignificance .

[Radio Wrangler]

Odd thing thrown up out of memory... Tippex thinner bottle had "Contains Xylene" written on it.

David

[Nymrod121]

I wonder whether citrus-based products would work? - for example, 'Sticky-Stuff Remover (tm)'

(BTW - found myself humming "Xylene ... Xylene ... Xylene ... Xyl-ee-ee-ene" to the tune made famous by Dolly Parton ... followed by a momentary lapse in concentration, but I'm back now )

[Bazz4CQJ]

Originally Posted by Nymrod121

I wonder whether citrus-based products would work? - for example, 'Sticky-Stuff Remover (tm)'

I have some citrus-based (i.e. terpene) label-remover supplied by Maplins. Works well, but very badly affects some plastics. Back to Tippex, isn't it water based now; I seem to recall that last time I thinned some I used water with just a drop of IPA to add a touch of 'je ne sais quoi'? Back in the 70's, I'm sure we thinned it with Inhibisol.

[Nickthedentist]

TippEx definitely used to contain 1,1,1-trichloroethane in the mid-80s when I used it at school. It said so on the back of the bottle.

The water-based ones came out in the late 1980s. I assumed at the time the change had been made to stop people sniffing it, as a glue-sniffer might. It was dismal stuff though, and as you might expect, made fountain pen ink run, turning the correction grey.

See here: http://www.inchem.org/documents/ukpi...ds/ukpid29.htm Scary stuff.

N.