Platin for removing paint overspray from plexiglass?

AlexThePalex

AlexThePalex

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I have a very beautiful thermometer, with brass and wood inside plexiglass balls. It was given to my father when he opened his new business back in 1980, the body shop. It used the hang there in the hallway of his office, but some 20 years ago was taken home and stored in the attic.

Turns out it is a pretty rare object and I got an offer from a collector that's very tempting. Unfortunately, on closer inspection I find very small dots of paint on it, which is clearly from overspray, which must have gotten in there with a draft when the door to the work floor was open.

I'm trying to remove it. So far I've tried it with some solvents, like turpentine and thinner, but it didn't work. The plexiglass is of such high quality that it wasn't affected by the solvents. But I couldn't get rid of the paint.

Next I tried to polish it away with the Rotex 150, using a polishing pad and MPA 8000 polishing compound, but so far also without result . I see some very fine plexiglass dust appearing when I polish for quite a while, but the paint doesn't appear to be affected at all.

Now I was wondering if it would work better if I used Platin for this. You can get Platin a lot coarser than P8000, but I don't want to scratch the plexiglass itself, just remove the paint only.

Does anybody know if that is possible to do with Platin, without damaging the plexiglass?

 
Thanks for the suggestion Tom. I have never seen that stuff over here. I will look into it.

But judging from your link, it is meant to clean the paint, not to remove it. Does it have abrasive qualities?
 
Any idea of what kind of paint?  I am going to imagine automotive of some sort based on what you have written in the past.

Peter
 
A search on the internet resulted in a suggestion that worked for someone else with automotive paint on plexiplass - Non-Acetone Nail polish remover.  Makes sense.

Peter
 
Peter Halle said:
Any idea of what kind of paint?  I am going to imagine automotive of some sort based on what you have written in the past.
Click to expand...

Peter, I don't think it is automotive paint because we always sprayed cars in the spraying booth which was of course sealed and also some distance away from the office.

In the area closest to the office we always used to spray industrial objects like machine housings, bridge parts or air ducts. The paints we used for those things weren't the 2 part automotive paint, but were mostly high solid paints with great scratch and chemical resistance.

Most of the time I can remove paint stains with thinner, it's a very strong solvent, but this time it just won't budge. I guess it's already over 20 years old, so it's completely hardened.

Will try the nail polish remover, the lady's got some. But if thinner won't solve it, I doubt any other solvent will work. At this point I really think I need an abrasive solution.

I've read here on the FOG about some people who restored their headlights with Platin and polishing. I'm curious how clear the plastic remained after the treatment.

 
Alex said:
Thanks for the suggestion Tom. I have never seen that stuff over here. I will look into it.

But judging from your link, it is meant to clean the paint, not to remove it. Does it have abrasive qualities?
Click to expand...

It cleans the paint by removing anything on the paint. As I said, think of it as planing, but on a micro layer scale. It removes the "build up" without damaging the sub surface. It is used all the time to remove overspray.

Be careful no matter what path you choose, you can quickly destroy the value of the piece.

Try denatured alcohol, with a little baby oil mixed in it.

Tom

 
I know nothing about paint removal from plastic, but keep in mind that certain cleaning / restoring / etc. work can drastically change the collector value of many items. 

Jeff
 
Yes, I'm being very careful here. Luckily some parts of the plexiglass are hidden underneath the brass sections so I have a few small spots to experiment. It's not a priceless antique we're talking about, I wouldn't dare touch that. It's about 30 years old and it's not that valuable, just a bit more then I originally expected.

The nail polish Peter suggested didn't work either unfortunately. I'll have to see if I can find that stuff Tom suggests here in the store tomorrow.

Right now all that works is using a sharp scraper to remove the tiny paint drops and then polish it with the Rotex.
 
Xylene (also called xylol) can be pretty effective with many different paints. It might help to put some on a rag and let it sit on the paint spots for a short while to soften them up. It's pretty effective with most oil- and latex-based paints, so there's a good chance it will work.
 
Alex, it may not apply but just in case... I handled the swap of a lease one time where the previous tenants painted the walls garishly (with latex). As we all know who have painted with a roller, little droplets go everywhere.

The owner had just had the hardwoods redone (sanded and the works) at great expense a couple of years earlier and immediately before the offensive tenant. The floor company used a water based polyurethane sort of compound (supposedly). They wanted essentially a redo fee to fix it and I really don't blame them...

I marinated the paint spots with, variously: water, Windex, and Formula 409 to soften up the paint and then scraped it with credit card wannabes. By wannabes, I mean the fake one's they send you in the mail trying to get you to sign up. It worked pretty well but what a pain in the back. It cost me about 2-3 painful hours vs. a redo fee. When I was done, I was convince that the new tenants wouldn't detect anything and they didn't.

I kind of doubt that something like that will work for you but it might be worth a try if you haven't already tried it. As you pointed out, there are several members that have successfully rejuvenated headlight lenses and several have bought Platin from me for that purpose. They all seemed to be happy with the results.

Tom
 
Tom,

After all that work, I hate to inform you denatured alcohol dissolves latex paint. Even after it has dried.

Tom
 
Thanks for taking the time and effort to make suggestions here, but I feel I've already exhausted the solvent route. I couldn't find the stuff Tom tjbnwi suggested, we don't have that over here in The Netherlands.

The stuff we call thinner over here is the Xylene atomicmike mentions, and that doesn't work either. Thinner is the strongest solvent for paint we can get, if you want stronger you'd have to use paint stripper, and that's certainly not an option for me.

I would really like to hear from somebody with experience with Platin and clear plastic, if there is somebody.

I can remove small scratches from the plastic with a polishing pad and the MPA 8000 polisihing compound, but it won't remove the paint, it's too hard. I want to know that if I use some Platin 4000 or 2000 first, will I be able to remove the scratches that makes with the polishing compound afterwards?
 
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