Question - Toy Cars

[DFlynSqrl]

I have some die cast cars I want to repaint for modern gaming.  I've seen quite a few painted toy cars on here so I was wondering how you guys did it?  Did you just paint over the existing paint or did you strip the paint off first?  Any other handy tips?

[Dolmot]

Funny timing. I received a couple of Matchbox cars yesterday and thought about this very question. Apparently people have been doing both - stripping and overpainting. I decided to try stripping, because the original paint is a bit thick and glossy. It would take a strong spray undercoat to make new acrylics stick, and the idea of tree heavy layers didn't sound good for details.

There are many kinds of prepaints, varying greatly between product lines. However, your usual stripping methods should work. Gentle chemicals for plastics, anything for metals. Brake fluid, pine oil, acetone, oven cleaner, true paint removers...all fine for their usual range of materials. Disassembly may be helpful. I took a test car and applied some Fairy Power Spray. A while later the paint was coming off nicely from the metal parts. Plastics weren't affected so quickly, but I believe those can be overpainted quite easily. Their old paint wasn't as thick as in the metal parts.

I can post a final report a bit later.

[Mr.Dodo]

I recommend drilling out the rivets holding the thing together before painting. A small amount of superglue usually keeps it together again.

[Christian]

As model cars tend to have a mix of metal and plastic I would recommend Simple Green as a paint stripper. I'm fairly sure it's available in the U.S. It is a biodegradable all-purpose cleaner. Undiluted it can strip paint. Makes you wonder...

But yes I'd recommend stripping to get any unecessary details off (like the one in my Model T repaint thread).

Here are some threads that were really inspiring:
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=8460.0
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=16801.0
http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=937.0

Good luck, and be sure to share all the great work you're about to do