So I may have gotten a little ambitious and sprayed dullcote on my MP15 christmas present. I didn’t think it looked bad untill I took a picture of it.
I took apart the locomotive ( huge props to atlas on this model, everything snaps together and the cab lights were on a plug ) and tried soaking the windows in soapy water and then scrubbing with a sponge. This only partly worked.
any better suggestions? Thank you.
Dullcote doesn’t wash off, at least not with anything that will not attack the surrounding paint. At least as bad and maybe worse is ACC fumes.
Is the windshield available as a separate part? That would be the easiest solution
Is it removable? If it is there are products which restore cloudy small aircraft windshields. I once had a 1 oz sample of such a product, but I moved and there is no hope of finding it.
Another idea is headlight restorer. Headlights nowadays are plastic and they get dinged and cloudy from road dust and grime.
There are also fine grade wet dry sandpapers in your auto store. Maybe something like a 5000 grit would shine it up.
edited for incredibly bad spelling
Yes the cab windows are removable and I had them soaking speratly.
I work at CDJR dealer and have a few headlight restore kits so I will try that route. But now thinking about opening a $40 kit to fix a $5 peice of plastic. I think I may head over to atlas’s sight and see if they offer replacements.
Thank you for your suggestions
I assume the windshield assembly is a single piece that fits into all the window openings. You need to contact Atlas and see if you can get another one.
You could try gluing flat windows on the inside, but you would notice the difference.
Its 4 peices and 2 fit together to make a channel for the headlight wires. Although its more of a 7 peice now as some of the windows broke while I scrubbed them ( they broke at the connecting peice so you cant tell when theyre back in place )
Atlas lists the window set for under $5. Just need to find them as they are out of stock!
Hey lesson learned
Suggestions to try.
I had some Dullcote overspray on some passenger car windows recently. A Q-tip cotton swab and a little Testor’s ELO cleaned them up nicely without fogging or crazing the clear styrene.
YMMV
Good Luck, Ed
Qtip soaked with mineral spirits. Take your time and it will come off, but there will likely always be residue in the crevaces. No matter, looks like weathering.
The MS should not hurt the adjacent paint since the factory paint is a water based paint that can be srtipped with alcohol. MS is solvent based, and oil and water don’t mix of course.
Alcohol will remove it easily and not hurt the plastic.
Mark.
I second the alcohol.
Also second using E.L.O. (not the band, the Testors stuff.)
You can also polish the windows with tooth paste.
If you cand stand the wait, get the replacement windows and save yourself all the work.
Remember that Dullcote is not the same thing as weathered, dirty, scratched or crazed plastic – the thing that produces the ‘dullness’ is finely divided silica, and if you can soak the ‘paint film’ loose, that silica will go right along with it. Then just use progressive fine grits to polish the window panels perfectly flat (most of the molded ones have little bulges as molded that ruin the prototype appearance for me) and then use whatever plastic polish gives you acceptable shine.
Having said that – polystyrene is an amorphous polymer, and many small-molecule solvents love to burrow in between the chains and cause irreversible fogging. I’m not sure if time gets them all out reliably, either, so polishing short of removing the fogged ‘thickness’ may not entirely solve the issue if solvent absorption is part of the problem.
Don’t rub the silica-bearing material as you take it off, though – that stuff is an effective, if fine, abrasive…
If you’re spraying Dullcote with an airbrush, it’s unlikely to be removeable. In order to use it in an airbrush, it requires a thinner, and lacquer thinner, the most efficacious thinner for that product that I’ve found, will be the culprit that’s caused the fogged windows.
For windows on structures where I want to limit the view into or through the building, I spray the inside of the “glass” with straight lacquer thinner. That “fogs” the window, but still leaves the outside surface shiny like glass.
I can’t comment on Dullcote from a spray can, though, as it may not be a lacquer-based product.
Wayne
Most of the locos I’ve redone, I add my own windows with clear plastic, after the dullcoat or finishing.
The few that I haven’t done that way, I took the time to mask off the windows.
Mike.
I’ve removed dullcoat from windows that I applied from the standard regular testors spray can.
I guess I can’t remember for sure if I used alcohol or mineral spirits on the q tip, but my impression is that alcohol generally wont affect rattle can paint for the most part.
I would try the above. If that does not work, you could try applying a coat of Future wax. It is sold under a new name now (Pledge Floor Gloss).
Simon
‘‘DITTO’’
''Happy New Year" Mike to You & Yours…still around occasionally!
Take Care! [swg]
Frank
There is an artist’s supply called the tortillon or tortillion. Also known as a Conte pencil. it is tightly wound cylinder of paper ending in a point, so it looks like a pencil. Paper is actually quite abrasive (which is why a paper cut hurts so much!). Rubbing with the point of a tortillon should bring some gleam and shine back to a DullCoated window. The edges of the window may still look dull but I doubt if the prototype windows see a lot of Windex in their lifetimes.
I have used the tortillon to smooth away a small portion of a weathered freight car so that an ACI label can be added to a “smooth” surface. I wrote about it in one of my Frugal Modeler columns in the summer 2019 NMRA Midwest Region’s Waybill, and that article can be found here:
http://www.mwr-nmra.org/mwr2016/mwr-images/waybillfiles/waybill2019summer.pdf
Dave Nelson
Thanks for the suggestion! I think that may ass up to a bit more than $4 to get replacements. But now thinking I do have anothe 2 that had the same goof so maybe it would be worth it to stock up!
Where can I find ELO?
I will try that route. I like the weathering on the edges, makes it look like its really dirty.