Removing paint from a body

[mikijh]

Hello everyone - I have a couple of car bodies that the paint is chipping. I would like to refinish as they have the stickers on them. I seen that tamiya has a paint remover. Is this fine to use to remove all the paint or is it just for cleaning up paint bleed from tape?
thanks

[juicedcoupe]

If a replacement body and decals are available, I'd definitely recommend going that direction.

I've seen some bodies that were stripped and repainted with decent results, but I've never had such luck. The older bodies that I've tried wound up hazy and cracked.

[Coelacanth]

I've had very little success stripping paint from bodies...but I did have luck on a few occasions. If it was painted with Pactra, the paint actually bonds to the Lexan and is nigh impossible to strip without damaging the Lexan (i.e. hazing or milky appearance that's inside the Lexan itself, not something you can buff out). The few times I had limited success was when bodies were painted with some acrylic or other inferior paint. I was able to strip an old Marui Shogun body this way using paper towels soaked in DOT3 brake fluid, then wadded up and pressed into the inside of the body, placed inside a plastic bowl, and left to sit for several hours or even overnight. It took 3 days at least, some of the nooks and crannies needed extra attention, but I was very fortunate to rescue that body.

One almost every other body I tried, nothing worked. Try the DOT3 brake fluid method and if you see nothing really coming off, give up and buy a repro body.

[R6cowboy]

I'm soon going to be attempting stripping a couple old bodies myself. Unfortunately the bodies I'm working on cannot be replaced, so I bought a bunch of lexan sheets and am in the middle of building a vacuum table to recreate the body myself.
Anyhow, homeboy at the local hobby shop told me the only thing he's had good results numerous times stripping lexan bodies is with r/c nitro fuel. The stuff pictured below. But it's quite tedious so patience is required. Last time I was there, dude grabbed a random used body off the shelf behind the counter and a quart of that nitro fuel. Soaked a rag with some fuel and began rubbing a small section of the old paint, within a few minutes of attention on that small spot, paint was gone and the body looked quite clear. He said it usually doesn't leave much haze if any, but depends on type of paint being removed. Now you can't go full gorilla with the fuel and soak a body in it, as it will ruin the body if it takes a bath for an extended period of time. So there's no quick process with it, you have to get a handful of rags dipped in the fuel and massage your big ol' heart out. Oh, and I recommend rubber gloves. But if replacement bodies are available, I'd rather go that route.
As far as the Tamiya Paint Remover (not the Tamiya polycarbonate body cleaner), I've seen a few youtube videos of people using it.

[Coelacanth]

I've tried nitro fuel too. If DOT3 brake fluid won't remove it, nitro fuel won't even touch it.

[R6cowboy]

I've tried nitro fuel too. If DOT3 brake fluid won't remove it, nitro fuel won't even touch it.

Thanks for mentioning that about Pactra paint by the way, good to know.

And I'll post my nitro fuel results on the 18-19 yr old paint.