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I hate to be a naysayer, but I followed this advice and bought me some 90% alcohol, then dumped several shells in a bath to try it out. Yes, the paint started flaking off right away, at least off of the old MRC / AHM shells I was working on; the Atlas(Kato) RS-11 shells had much more tenacious paint. I abandoned trying to strip the Atlas shells once I detected some warping of the plastic, at the part of the shell where the wall gets thinner to make room for the motor. The other shells appeared to be doing fine, though the heavy factory paint was only coming off by my picking at it, flaking off in chunks but not sizable ones. <br /> <br />In the hopes that I might get all the paint to just totally bubble and peel off in the bath, I left the shells in overnight. To my horror, I discover in the morning that every one of them was warped after this, their cabs and noses twisted noticably. There doesn't appear to be any remedy for this, so now I have three worthless eBay purchases, three hard-to-find long out of production engines which, admittedly, were nowhere near modern quality, yet as the chosen core of my fleet represent what would have been my most cherished units. <br /> <br />A lesson learned? Sure, if I use alcohol again, I won't use it as a soaking bath. The other lesson is this: plastics WILL WARP based on contact with alcohol. The Kato thin-walled shells took very little time to exhibit this. For now, I think I am going to stick with my policy of buying units with simple factory paint jobs and just painting over them, avoid the risk.
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