It depends......

What are you trying to strip?  A Kato loco?  Atlas car?  Scale Coat you put on 10 years ago?  Each type of finish and each type of model will react differently to all the witches brews out there.  But the only two things I put lye on is glass ceramic and gold - it won't eat through either.

Steve

You never know what I'm stripping

One day I might want to strip an Athearn locomotive, the next an old brass model.  Sometimes it's a commercial finish, sometimes it's something I've painted.  My current project is removing a really poor quality paint job I just did a few days ago, using an off-brand version of Rustoleum gloss black in a spray can.  That's some tough stuff!  On the other hand, a 50+ year old Globe F7B was stripped clean almost as soon as it hit the oven cleaner.

Like I said, I've found oven cleaner to be the best all-purpose stripper.  I don't like having to maintain a variety of products to do the same job - this one for Kato, that one for Atlas, this one over here for Rivarossi, etc.  I can keep on using the spray, of course, but I wondered if there is any reason why pure lye would be different, chemically?

Are you sure it's just the lye?

Are you sure it's just the lye (sodium hydroxide) in the oven cleaner that is removing the paint?  

Easy-Off oven cleaner, a popular brand used as an example, also contains Butane, Monoethanolamine and Diethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether. The latter is a major component of brake fluid, which will also remove paint from plastic shells.  It sounds like the oven cleaner is a concoction of several chemicals capable of removing various types of paint, which is probably why it's so effective.  I'd be hesitant to mess around with pure lye anyway as mixing it with water can produce heat.  Also be careful with the zinc, bronze, tin and aluminum around lye, it will react with those to produce hydrogen gas.

Works for me

Chameleon paint stripper works well for me on a number of plastic freight cars. Newer cars and locos may strip easily using 91% alcohol as most modern paints are now an alcohol base. If you want to strip metal and plan to do so frequently, I think I'd rather use an ultrasonic.

Eric

STRIPPER

I use Pine Sol in a plastic container overnight.  Has worked well so far and no damage to plastic or metal

Brake fluid...

..... NOT silicone type did the trick years ago, but some experimentation and/or other input would be advisable now.

WOW!

Are we not all looking for a good stripper?

OH! You mean a paint stripper.

Never mind!

Na OH

I have used Caustic Soda (NaOH) as a stripper on cars and Locos  - diluted down to about 10% -will attack aluminium though - but it works quickly for most paints

Regards

Ric B

Denatured alcohol.

Denatured alcohol was the chemical component of brake fluid that worked as a paint stripper.  Basically the old style brake fluid was a mixture of denatured alcohol and light oils to lubricate brake system parts.

Denatured alcohol is readily available as a paint thinner at any paint store, hardware store, or big box home improvement store.

I have discovered, however, that the alcohol worked as stripper on old Athearn rolling stock and engines, but the new stuff is using a different paint formula and the alcohol doesn't do anything at all, neither does Pine Sol do anything with the new paints that Athearn uses.

This was not good....

When in my early teens (when I knew EVERYTHING) I sandblasted a plastic Lionel GP unit. Worked too good, way too good!.

About time

"

Are we not all looking for a good stripper?

"

I was wondering if anyone was going to comment on the obvious.

Are we not all looking for a good stripper?

"

I was wondering if anyone was going to comment on the obvious.<

Not all of us are dirty old men.

Irv

Who's old?

Who's old?

Looking for a stripper

So what's wrong with being old? It sure beats the alternative, don't you think?

As for the dirty part, i would think you should object to that more the old part.

Irv

It was tongue in cheek, I am

It was tongue in cheek, I am old, but not dirty. (I think)

Of course it was tongue in cheek,

but so was the original message

But it is nice to know that even if we are old (if you can consider 63 as being old) we can still have some fun with model railroading.

Irv

Oh, Crap!

Pipopak

How funny is that! I'm still rolling on the floor. Sounds like you could have painted it rust and put it on a track in the recycling yard.  LOL-thanks.

(Sorry, I didn't get this attached to your reply)

New Paint Stripper For Plastic Now Available

The brand name is Blue Magic and it works better than Chameleon.  I have used it to strip an Athearn, Kato and brass engines with no problem.  I like it because it disolves the paint and does not have to be strained to reuse.

It's available on eBay in both pint, quart and gallon size.  Just search for Blue Magic.

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