How do you clean plastic cement or glue from a painted plastic model?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

…and how do you do it so it looks as good as new, or as good as possible?

Or is it hopeless and I have to remove enough stuff to repaint?

I have a nice old assembled kit of an NP queen post truss boxcar that I bought that someone “fixed” the door of with a glob of what is probably model airplane glue.

2

In some cases you may be SOL. In places where there is minimal detail I very careful sand it smooth with 400 and then 600 grit or more sandpaper. Sometimes you may have to use a little sanding filler (like Squadron Green putty) to make it smooth again. If it is on clear plastic that can be a whole other can of worms. Some times it can get sanded and polished out and other times, like I said, your just SOL. Posting a picture of it, if you can, might get some more detailed and exact solutions.

3

I agree with WP here. Old style model cement is very aggressive and tends to melt everything in the vicinity, so you probably have some reconstruction work in store for you where the blob ate your boxcar. [dinner]

There isn’t any solvent that will dissolve the glue without taking the plastic with it. The only exception is an old type of craft cement that looked like model glue but didn’t dissolve styrene, and could be broken apart fairly easily, but that’s probably not what was used.

4

This may be an opportunity for weathering. “Instant Rust” could be used to cover up whatever damage the glue did to the model’s surface.

This MOW car has seen better days:

5

In response to the request for a picture (I should have thought of that0, here is a scan of the poor beast followed by a detail of around the door with the glue:

I have already removed some of the glue using an Exacto chisel blade in scraping motion nearly perpendicular to the painted surface.

I wonder if anyone has had any luck using a solvent such as acetone with a Q-Tip, very light in application?

The upper door track needs to be fixed, the truss and queen posts are messed up, and a brake wheel needs replacing…yada, yada, yada. But first is getting rid of the glue!

6

Looks like you are S.O.L. [sigh], That blob looks a lot like Testors tube cement, and that’s some pretty hard stuff to get off plastic. Any sanding will take off the surface detail and I don’t know of anything that will dissolve Testors glue without dissolving the plastic too, so you might want to stick the door back on and try to cover up that glue mess as much as you can.

7

I was afraid of that [sigh]

8

That’s the same method that I would’ve used. Now, use a #11 blade to remove the glue residue from the grooves between the boards - sometimes the back of the blade works well for this, but try to not make the grooves deeper or wider than they would have been originally. The damage looks pretty superficial to me, so you probably won’t need to use any filler, unless the knife slips. [swg] Finish up with a few light passes with some fine sandpaper, then touch-up the paint. Don’t use a solvent like acetone or lacquer thinner, as both will attack the plastic further.

Wayne

9

Tamiya offers a lacquer thinner described as “plastic friendly” whatever that means. If something like this is considered I would certainly recommend you practice on something before working on your model. Here is a link to their website:

http://www.tamiyausa.com/product/item.php?product-id=87077

Wayne

10

That isn’t too bad. You don’t have any intricate detail (rivets and such) to speak of. I would lightly sand what is left down to the top surface starting with 250 then go to 400 grit sandpaper. Then re scribe the grooves. Finish up with brush painting some Floquil boxcar red. Wood siding is very forgiving. If you haven’t started weathering any of your rolling stock this would be the perfect place to start. What have you got to loose?

11

As others have said, you can’t really clean plastic cement because of the way it works. It disolves the surfaces of the plastic parts to be mated which allows them to fuse together as the glue dries. If you get the cement where it is not wanted, you will have a marred surface. While you can’t remove it, you can disguise it through various means, such as sanding, painting, weathering. Look at this as a chance to be creative. You can turn a negative into a positive.