Stripping/Cleaning Up Klear and Other Acrylics

[Steve Coombs]

Having endured a long, lonely trawl around the cleaning and detergents sections of local supermarkets, looking for something containing ammonia to strip acrylics and clean up brushes, I got my hands on a litre of 9.6 - 9.9% ammonia solution.

Any idea by how much I am going to have to dilute this stuff further for my intended use without risk to my models, modelling supplies, and small and delicate pink body? I am well aware of the handling precautions, but even so...

Do anionic tensides do a similar job? That's the active ingredient in the contents list for just about every cleaner available hereabouts.

I was last in a chemistry lab in 1979 and would appreciate some assistance here.

TIA,

Steve

 

[Mike]

I was last in a Chemisty lab in 1783, and have even less clue about nonionic surfactants and the like, but can attest to Mr Muscle Oven Cleaner working fine with acrylics, and also Isopropyl Alcohol (IPA) applied liberally over the surface will work too.  I removed acrylic varnish, acrylic metallic and (to an extent) Alclad primer from my Tunnan a few weeks back, applying it on sections of kitchen roll so that it wasn't "wet" and it didn't get inside to ruin the cockpit.  It came out quite well

 

Before

 

 

 

After

 

 

Re-primed

 

 

The primer was a bit dusty, but as you can see, the detail was preserved

[AdriaN (MLT)]

I use AJAX CRYSTAL CLEAN. it contains some ammonia. removes dried or wet Klear and use it to clean still wet brushes.

[LotusArenco]

Just be careful if you use ammonia based cleaners in a chrome plated airbrush. After a while the ammonia can eat into the finish.

My old faithful Badger 200 has the insides of the colour cup stripped back to brass where I’ve used ammonia products to clean it out.

 

Mart

[Steve Coombs]

Thanks, Gents, for your suggestions and comments. I finally found some cleaning fluid in a local DIY centre that not only does the job admirably, but kills 99.9% of germs as it does so (and it isn't Domestos!).