Removing factory painted lettering from cars and locos

[Anonymous]

I am starting this thread to restart a previous thread asking about 'decals' when the asker really wanted to know about removing painted lettering. Lets hope we get some good advice. The original question was asked by someone in Australia, so they may have different brand names of household cleaning products. Real chemical names will be the same for any part of the world, Methanol and Ethenol come to mind as commonly available 'Alcohols' . If you have found that a particualr brand name cleaner works good, post about it. Perhaps a Google Search will reveal the real chemicals inside the can.
Thanks
Jennifer

[Supermicha]

As i wrote in the "decal removing" thread, i used cotton sticks with 96%ic Isopropylalcohol (available in pharmacies here in germany) to remove the lettering on a Walthers Superliner Car. I wanted to repaint it into the current Phase IVb Scheme, but had no silver paint, so i tried this way and It worked very well, the basic silver paint was not dammaged...

[Anonymous]

I carefully scraped the numbers off with a sharp knife when changing the numbers on my GP-40s. This worked very well. Just be careful not to go too deep.

[bogp40]

QUOTE: Originally posted by 02F350PSD

I carefully scraped the numbers off with a sharp knife when changing the numbers on my GP-40s. This worked very well. Just be careful not to go too deep.

An Xacto chisel works great for scraping, I sharpen it on a stone/ hone and slightly knock off the sharp edges as not to gouge while scraping. If the blade is sharp enough the paint is not harmed at all. This is used as a last resort when the above methods of solvents and chemicals fail to produce satisfactory results.
Bob K.

[Anonymous]

91% isopropyl alcohol and a cotton swab (or a pencil eraser for decals & stubborn painted on lettering) works every time.

[Anonymous]

Anyone have experience with mid 60s Rivarossi? I have Dads 2-8-8-2 Y6B, but it is lettered in SantaFe from the factory. I am thinking about bringing it around to the original road N&W, but would like to avoid a total repaint if I can. The tender has some BIG letters on it that have to go, .....and the N&W is much smaller thus exposing much surface area that will have been under the original lettering. Sadly the loco will forever suffer from deep flanges. I'll dig it out and work on it next weekend, and try whatever hints are suggested.
Jennifer