I was wondering if some one could help me? I'm currently building Tamiya's 1/32nd F-16 "Thunderbirds" (that my wonderful girlfriend (Camogirl) bought me for Christmas last year) and I have had a problem with the nose cone.
I used the kit decals for the front nose section and could not get them to conform for love nor money leaving gaps in places and overlapping in others so I decided to mask off the white sections and spray it with Tamiya's TS-19 Italian Red to try and blend it out. Then disaster struck the Paint crazed in areas so I waited a while and sanded out the crazed areas and sprayed again this time in my haste (was trying to finish the kit for Newark Model show) I applied too much and this time the paint ran

So I decide to bite the bullet and made masking template of the area and tried to paint strip the nose cone and here in lies the problem. The damn paint won't come off i have tried the following methods but to no avail:
1. Dot4 brake fluid
2. Modelstrip

It has stripped some of the paint off and I don’t really fancy sanding the paint back as there are some faint raised lines that would be lost.
I have heard that oven cleaner might work but I'm unsure whether to try this in case it melts the nose cone and I have to buy a replacement cone from Tamiya at £8-15 (what's that all about?)

Has anyone tried using oven cleaner or does anyone have any other suggestions on removing this Tamiya spray paint thats welded to the plastic worse than my mum’s porridge to a saucepan

I too have heard about oven cleaner - but have not used it myself. I would wait to hear from someone who has. If you don't post this same question in the armorama site. I know some of the armor guys were the ones who used oven cleaner. They may not see or read the thread here on Gen Mod.

Hello Allen,
I feel for your pain brother, here is a link Merlin done back in March. I have to say it works very well and I swear by it. I also have removed paint from kits that were 5-7 years old. Good luck...

Strippin Paint

Joe

I use Easy Off oven cleaner and have never had a problem with it. I place the part into a ziplock bag and spray the part liberally. It usually comes off after a few hours, and I've left the parts in overnight with no ill effects to the plastic.

Sometimes it takes some working off the paint with a toothbrush or getting paint out of crevices with a toothpick.

Hi Allen,

I have only used the oven cleaner system once on a Tamiya F117 and used the bog standard Mr Muscle oven cleaner that the wife had hanging about in the cupboard. same method place in a ziplock freezer bag, spray the part generously, leave overnight and clean off the effluent the next morning with old toothbrush and a couple of cocktail sticks and hey presto the part was ready to paint again. That time I used less haste and all went swimmingly. Never rush for a show mate, you can always show it later as rushing with rattlecans often goes the same way from experience.

Good luck,

John

Hi Tomcat31,
I recently had good success with brake fluid but it sounds like you already tried that. I have heard that oven cleaner has worked for some folks. I also read an interesting piece that suggested this product called Castrol Super Clean which is a purple colored degreaser....I found some at Wal-mart and bought a gallon but have yet to personally try it. Good luck and I feel your pain.
Hoss

I have used all three methods of removing paint

1 Brake fluid did not care for this one
2 Oven Cleaner worked as the others have said
3. Castrol super clean worked relly well for me just soak the part in it over night and the paint just about fell off

Chewie

Ditto no worries, and sometimes takes it off in minutes. Wear gloves though. Most CA glued joints however will also come apart(not modeling glues that weld plastic however)...Superclean can do it too usually without affecting most glue joints. Easy-off always works if its really stubborn. It also depends on the paint itself, something you think that will be stubborn like a metallic silver come right off and another like yellow can be a real pain. Get some tamiya white spray primer to ensure no issues with colors matching next to the other white plastic parts if the red dyes the plastic a pink hue.

Thanks for all of the suggestions and after many trials and errors it finally came off after trying 2 different brands of oven cleaner available in the UK. But it was a lot of hard work (unfortunately the two pitot tube on the sides snapped off). At least i've leant my lesson and will be more careful when applying Tamiya spray paint over the top of Halford's Appliance White.