1953 Ford Victoria. Rotting away.

[JunkGTZ]

So soaking it in brake fluid will remove paint without damaging plastic? Does it work only with enamel or does it work with lacquers too? Just curious - I thankfully don't have anything that needs paint removed- yet(?). How do you prep the surface after removing the paint? With what do you clean the brake fluid off?

[Dr Dave]

Yes Larry, I have no problems with brake fluid. I have heard people say "don't use brake fluid because it ruins the plastic". Brake fluid is sold in plastic containers (yeah, it might be a different type of plastic, but it's still plastic). I did some testing long ago before I put any model parts in it and nothing went wrong, so I'm happy to say that it works perfectly for me. I have only used it for removing automotive paint (which is solvent based acrylic ) and enamels. I haven't tried removing water based acrylic with brake fluid. I have many times used caustic soda to remove Tamiya enamels and acrylics but it didn't work on automotive paints. The age of the paint, and the thickness, determines how long it needs to soak. I've had paint come off in less than half an hour, and I've had parts soak for 2 weeks and still couldn't get it all off, so there is no set time that it has to sit. Just keep checking, and scrubbing with a toothbrush, until it comes off easily. Whatever I use to remove paint, there is always a thorough clean up afterwards. I always wash parts in a tub of luke warm water with dishwashing liquid and scrub with an old toothbrush making sure to get into every little corner, then rinse thoroughly under the tap to flush away any trace of paint stripper. Just like new and ready for your normal painting procedure.
I have also used oven cleaner with some success. I have heard of other things like isopropyl alcohol , methylated spirits, and some other things, but never tried them myself. I can only speak for what I have tried.
I hope this is helpful to you.

[Dr Dave]

Paint removed and body cleaned up, ready start the wrecking procedure. Goodness me, this seems really weird. I used a cigarette lighter to soften the roof and trunk lid so I could push dents into them. Then I used a dental bur in my Dremel to grind away some plastic from the inside of the body where rust is most likely to eat through the panels, leaving some feathered edges that will look like flaking rust.
Next I used a cheap spray can of brown enamel as a base coat which will later be the rust showing through the top coat.

[Jo NZ]

Simple Green (used neat) is very good at stripping Tamiya acrylics , and doesn't affect the plastic.

[Dr Dave]

I wanted the hood to look damaged so I got the foil seal from a large coffee tin and pressed it down onto the corner of the hood, gently rubbing and burnishing it until it took on the shape. Next I trimmed it back to follow the edge of the hood, then I trimmed the other edge of the foil to be glued onto the hood and traced around that edge onto the hood. I cut away the plastic from that corner so about 5mm of foil overlapped on the plastic. I used superglue to attach the foil and then ran some primer along the glued edge using a tooth pick. When the primer was dry I gently sanded that edge until it was smooth. To make the foil buckle up I just whacked it with the handle of my modelling knife.

[JunkGTZ]

I'm glad to learn how you did this. I am also using a combination of aluminum and plastic body pieces with my Jaguar RC body project and while I's have to beef mine up some underneath because it's going to be subject to some vibration and such when running I am hoping I can keep the seams from being too obvious. Your work here looks great.

[Dr Dave]

Thanks Larry, glad you like it.
I try to explain how I do things in the hope that it will be helpful to other model builders. And I like it when people ask questions.
Right at the very top of the page where there are a few details of the build it says 1/12th scale. It is actually 1/25th scale but I can't change the heading, there is no provision to over ride the automatic selections. Admin, this is something that needs to be fixed up.

[Dr Dave]

This next technique, called salting, is common for those who do a lot of weathering . I have seen it done a few times in the past by a good friend of mine, but this is the first time I have ventured into this realm of modelling. I must say that I was quite exited to be trying this out, and even more exited when I saw what I had created.

When the brown paint had dried I used a spray bottle to mist some water over it. Then I sprinkled salt over the hood and body. The water makes the salt stick, and you can control how much salt goes in certain areas according to how much rust you want to have showing. Table salt is too fine for this process so I used rock salt, which is larger granules, and can be lightly broken down into smaller pieces giving a range of various sized grains of salt. Once this is done the body is set aside so the water can dry. Once dry, a light coat of primer is applied, then a couple of light coats of blue on the body and white on the roof. The salt acts as masking so the primer and top coats don't entirely cover the brown. This is left to dry. When the top coat is dry the salt is rubbed off revealing the underlying brown, which looks like rust. This is the starting point for the rust effects and from here the more serious and detailed weathering process begins.

[BrassBuilder]

Very informative. I've always wondered how that salt rust technique was done and now I know.

Great write up.

Mike

[Dr Dave]

Thanks Mike, I'm glad you find it informative. Are you tempted to give it a go at all?

Now to go a bit further with the rusting of the body. I got this stuff from the local hardware store. It makes real rust. You brush on the black oxide paste where you want rust, leave it to dry overnight, and the next day brush a liberal amount of the blue/green liquid onto the dried oxide. To get the best result put the part in a plastic bag and seal it up. I found that if there are areas that haven't reacted fully after 24 hours, a little water can be applied, let sit for half an hour, and then blow dried with a hair drier. This can sometimes increase the rusting affect of the oxide. It's all just a matter of trying different things to see what happens, and when you're building a wreck you can't really make a mistake because you're wrecking it anyway.

[Dr Dave]

Some interior work. The seats were covered with tissue which is held in place only by paint. As the paint started to dry I used my scalpel blade to cut and tear the tissue and pull it away from the seats a little to make it look like the seats are torn and decaying. Then I brushed some flat clear onto the seats and sprinkled some dried lawn clippings on, and some leaves made just for dioramas, plus a few small seed pods from a plant in my garden.

[Dr Dave]

With the interior tub coming along nicely I also wanted to make the roof lining blend in with the it, so I used the same technique as the seats. I cut a piece of tissue and laid it inside the roof. Then I began to paint it so the paint soaked through the tissue and held it in place. Like the seats I let the paint dry a bit, then I trimmed the edges back and used my knife to cut and tear the tissue and pull it away from the roof a bit. When the body is turned the right way up the tissue sags and dries in place, and looks just like a real roof lining that is old and ruined.