It depends on what your base color is. I've had great success removing Dullcoat with alcohol - having a laquer based finish. If the base finish is enamel or a water-based, it will probably bite into it. Try a small spot in an inconspicuous location. The trick is to get the alcohol to soften and remove the Dullcoat before it has the time to bite into the original finish .... it's going to be a gamble either way - you gotta work quick.
Mark.
¡ uʍop ǝpısdn sı ǝɹnʇɐuƃıs ʎɯ 'dlǝɥ
mikesmowers wrote: A few weeks ago I weathered a SF Loco with chalks and then applied Dul-Coat to it, After looking at for a while I have decided I over did the weathering and would like to re-do it. Is there any way of removing the Dul-Coat so I can re-weather it? Thanks, Mike
Mike;
Dullcoat, Gloscoat as well, has a lacquer base to it, and as a result has a nasty habit of physically bonding with the paint below it, esp if applied "WET". The only suggestion I can offer is to take a Q-tip, and on an obscure part of the shell, try a weak solvent such as Solvaset from Walthers, and see if this can remove the dull coat. Regular alcohol may work as well if scrubbed, but alcohol will turn dullcoat white, if it doesn't remove it.
Only other option is strip and repaint/decal.
Edit. Mark you beat me to it!
Carey
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cjcrescent wrote: Dullcoat, Gloscoat as well, has a lacquer base to it, and as a result has a nasty habit of physically bonding with the paint below it, esp if applied "WET".
I have to respectfully dis-agree. Dullcoat is enamel based. The "dulling" ability is that it contains talc - that's why it looks milky in the bottle ( after it sets for some time, you can see the talc has settled to the bottom ).
Remember the "trick" for creating faded paint where you Dullcoat the model then spray it with alcohol ? - the alcohol is softening the binder in the Dullcoat causing the talc to rise to the surface causing the whitish faded look. Too much alcohol applied will cause all of the binder to be removed / evaporated leaving nothing to hold the talc in place .... wa-la - Dullcoat all gone !!! Whatever binder / finish that is left behind will not be dull as all of the talc content has risen to the surface and been washed away.
Mark R. wrote: cjcrescent wrote: Dullcoat, Gloscoat as well, has a lacquer base to it, and as a result has a nasty habit of physically bonding with the paint below it, esp if applied "WET". I have to respectfully dis-agree. Dullcoat is enamel based. The "dulling" ability is that it contains talc - that's why it looks milky in the bottle ( after it sets for some time, you can see the talc has settled to the bottom ). Remember the "trick" for creating faded paint where you Dullcoat the model then spray it with alcohol ? - the alcohol is softening the binder in the Dullcoat causing the talc to rise to the surface causing the whitish faded look. Too much alcohol applied will cause all of the binder to be removed / evaporated leaving nothing to hold the talc in place .... wa-la - Dullcoat all gone !!! Whatever binder / finish that is left behind will not be dull as all of the talc content has risen to the surface and been washed away.Mark.
Now I have to dissagree. Dullcote/Glosscote,(proper spelling) has never been enamel based. My bottles clearly state on the labels Dullcoat Lacquer!
Heres a photo:
I have always used this product in my custom painting business, (over 35yrs), and I can assure you that it smells like lacquer, performs like lacquer, and if applied directly to bare plastic without some sort of barrier, ie paint, shield coat, etc will melt the plastic because of the base. The base is composed of alcohols and toluol, toluol melts plastic. The directions even state to use Testors Lacquer thinner/brush cleaner to thin.
Well, since I see a lot of random suggestions here, let me add one of my own that I stumbled upon, quite accidently .I once soaked a model vehicle I had dull-coated in soapy water (Dish washing liquid) for a number of hours, hoping to get it really clean () - dang if that dish-washing liquid bath didn't strip off the dull-coat (I used Palmolive at the time, but others seem to work well), without mucking up the base paint - it was like the dull-coat had not been applied. Since then I have used this method dozens of time on both Testors & Model Master (yeah, same company I know) Dull coat & SemiGloss, and it's saved me a lot of grief.
Can't vouch for say non-model paints (like Home Depot's Painters Touch), nor for not spray paint, but can say it seems to strip dull-coat paint that's been on the model for over 2 weeks. Give it a shot, it should work and your models do come out smelling Mountain-Stream fresh (or lemony, or pine-cones, or whatever's on sale that week...)
cjcrescent wrote: Now I have to dissagree. Dullcote/Glosscote,(proper spelling) has never been enamel based. My bottles clearly state on the labels Dullcoat Lacquer!Heres a photo: I have always used this product in my custom painting business, (over 35yrs), and I can assure you that it smells like lacquer, performs like lacquer, and if applied directly to bare plastic without some sort of barrier, ie paint, shield coat, etc will melt the plastic because of the base. The base is composed of alcohols and toluol, toluol melts plastic. The directions even state to use Testors Lacquer thinner/brush cleaner to thin.
I'm STILL gonna dis-agree with you. That lacquer labelling on the bottle is very misleading. If in fact it had a lacquer based content, it would melt white styro-foam immediately .... right out of the bottle it doesn't !!! It's the reducer you're adding to the Dullcote that is causing the melting. Dullcote does not have a base finish content, only a binder. It is indicated on the bottle as lacquer because it can be reduced as a lacquer base. It can also be reduced as an enamel base because the binder is alcohol based which is soluable with either lacquer OR enamel. So now you're wondering why it can't be reduced with water if it's alcohol based, right ? To go off on another tangent, not all alcohols are water miscible either - I honestly don't know the chemical make up of the alcohol used, but it's not the water miscible type.
As for the other member finding dish soap removed the dullcote, what you found was the soap removing the talc that is suspended in the binding layer because the talc itself will dissolve in water. The alcohol based binder was probably still left behind which itself has a transparent appearance resembling the original finish underneath.
Thanks for all the suggestions. Last night I was breaking a new Bachmann loco and while it was running I got out the bottle of 91% alchol and tried it on the over-weathered loco. It Worked pretty well. I used the alchol with Q tips and although it was slow work, it took off nearly all the Dul-Coat as well as the chalk. I worked about 45 minutes or so and got the top and one side done. I am trying to leave some of the weathering in the corners and some other places and I do not think I wil need to weather it again, maybe another coat of Dul-Coat.
Thanks for all the help, Mike
Mark R. wrote:I'm STILL gonna dis-agree with you. That lacquer labelling on the bottle is very misleading. If in fact it had a lacquer based content, it would melt white styro-foam immediately .... right out of the bottle it doesn't !!! It's the reducer you're adding to the Dullcote that is causing the melting. Dullcote does not have a base finish content, only a binder. It is indicated on the bottle as lacquer because it can be reduced as a lacquer base. It can also be reduced as an enamel base because the binder is alcohol based which is soluable with either lacquer OR enamel. So now you're wondering why it can't be reduced with water if it's alcohol based, right ? To go off on another tangent, not all alcohols are water miscible either - I honestly don't know the chemical make up of the alcohol used, but it's not the water miscible type.Mark.
OK, Since you will not believe the company's info, would you believe these?
http://hazard.com/msds/f2/bvg/bvgcx.html
http://siri.org/msds/f2/bjf/bjfkq.html
And for comparasion,
http://www.performancecoatings.dupont.com/dpc/en/us/html/prodinfo/daf/US_en_GNRC_3-0_RFN.pdf
Of course I believe those links .... they just prove my statement !!! There is NO laquer content in Dull-cote - it's all alcohol based. And as I also stated, of the three varieties of alcohol in its content, none of them are water miscible.
The word lacquer is grossly mis-represented in many commercial paint products. Lacquer itself is a resin that dries by solvent evaporation. There is no lacquer resins in Dull-cote. To even add to the confusion, there are also acrylic and water-based laquers !!!
Mike himself proved this by his ability (as I have as well) to remove the Dull-cote by using alcohol. There's no way the alcohol would remove this as successfully if the finish contained cured lacquer resins.
I'm sure you've seen this, but for those who haven't, a little background on lacquer resins ....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacquer
What else ya got ???
Mark how can they prove your statement?
American made lacquers are composed from a cellulose resin. It can be nitro cellulose, amyl cellulose, ethyl cellulose or just plain cellulose. Its not the solvents that define a lacquer. Its the cellulose. The MSDS clearly states cellulose is used here!
Now since not only you don't believe, my 35 years of working with lacquer based paints, the Testor Company's own info, the DOD's info, or even the largest maker of lacquer paints in the world's info, continue to believe what you wish.
Its obvious you aren't going to change your opinion.
After re-reading this thread, I believe we are both arguing to the same conclusion from opposite sides of the spray booth. I'm not illiterate on paint formulation myself - you only have five years experience more than me.
Lets see if I can find this middle ground where we both are aiming .... Dull-cote is solvent based, the solvents being alcohols (AMYL ALCOHOL / ETHYL ALCOHOL / ISOBUTYL ALCOHOL). The original poster wanted to know what would remove Dull-cote, to which I responded was (generically) alcohol .... and it worked. Dull-cote is alcohol BASED, not lacquer based, even though it contains lacquer resins as a binder and can be reduced with lacquer "thinners" - heck, most any solvent based paint can be reduced with lacquer "thinners" (I used quotations because we both know there are numerous lacquer thinners). Your experience of Dull-cote crazing plastics is not a result of the laquer resins, but rather the alcohols, of which some varieties CAN attack certain varieties of plastics.
I think where we are butting heads is on the "base" terminology.
Generally speaking, all paint is made up of three components: a pigment, a vehicle, and a solvent.Pigment is the material that gives paint its color - in the case of Dull-cote, it is the talc content. Pigments can be organic or chemical, but pigments have nothing to do with how the paint is classified.
A paint vehicle is material that bonds to pigment and remains on the surface once the paint dries, this would be the laquer resins in Dull-cote. The vehicle is what gives paint its protective properties. Lacquer in its purest form is a resin and can be made soluable by a wide variety of solvents - including water. Lacquer only dries it does not cure. The solvent evaporates with no chemical reaction. This is why water- based lacquers can be dissolved with water long after the paint has dried. This is also why applying multiple layers of lacquer can result in the underlying layers dissolving.
For years, modelers, hobby shop owners, and even "experts", have referred to modeling paints as either enamel/ lacquer (meaning that the paint uses a chemical solvent) or acrylic (meaning that water is the solvent). This is just plain wrong and only adds to the confusion. Hence my original statement that the name "Dull-cote Lacquer" is misleading .... it should be called "Dull-cote Alcohol", but you know as well as I, that would just confuse the hell out of people !!! Try adding water to a petroleum-based acrylic enamel and you quickly realize that not all acrylics are water-based. It's the word "based" is often mis-used / mis-understood and I think that's where we dis-agree. To be more accurate, it should be called "Dull-cote Petrolium" as it can be reduced by a myriad of solvents icluding lacquer reducers / enamel reducers and a number of alcohols .... so confusing !!!
So - can we agree on this ? .... The "pigment" in Dull-cote is talc - the "binder" is lacquer (cellulose) resin - and the solvent (according to the MSDS sheet) is alcohol (even though the specific alcohols used CAN be cut using lacquer "thinners" !!! ).
Are we getting any closer to meeting in the middle !!!
mikesmowers wrote:Kind of getting off the subject arn't we? Mike
.... But I like a good debate !!!
I wonder what the MSDS Sheet for Microsol reads?
It works too.
Neutrino wrote: I wonder what the MSDS Sheet for Microsol reads?It works too.
According to the MSDS sheet, it is an aqueous solution with a slight alcohol-like odor, so logic would tell me there is obviously some sort of alcohol content as well ....
http://decalconnection.com/msds_microsol.pdf
Yes, I too like a good discussion/argument, "printed" or face-to-face. IF you listen/read, you MAY learn something new about a subject the two, (or more), folks are disscussing.
Mark;
Yes, it seems we are talking from different sides of the paint booth. Alcohols ARE used to "thin" lacquers and just about anything else "petroleum" wise, (even gasoline, but don't!), can be used as well. But we both know that its the resin content that defines lacquer and not the solvent. Even your "wiki" link defines it as such, even though its referral to nitrocellulose is fast becoming outdated. Many manufacturers have gone to other cellulose bases other than nitrocellulose, since through the use of some not so difficult chemistry, can be turned into an explosive.
Hey Carey
That's where Testors using the word "Lacquer" on their product could be misleading to a certain extent. Depending on the chemical make-up of the product, lacquers can be made soluable in most anything INCLUDING water.
To the uninformed, people see "lacquer" on the bottle and automatically assume it's a petrolium based product, when in fact, there ARE water based lacquer paints as well !!! Sure, the bottle indicates it contains alcohol, but again, some alcohols are miscible in water and some aren't. If the back label indicated it contained isopropyl alcohol, would you naturally assume the product could be thinned with water even though the front label says lacquer ??? - probably not. Would the company label it as lacquer if in fact the carrier was a water miscible alcohol ??? - again, probably not.
From our stand-point, we understand this, but from Testors' view-point, I'm sure they are labelling this product based on the ignorance (no slam intended) of the general populous to just assume if it says lacquer, it must be a solvent based product so I shouldn't attempt to thin it with water. The chemistry of paint today is a fine science and requires a very high degree to know the molecular structure of each component and its ability to, or not to, react with other components (good or bad) .... it's not as cut and dried as a generic labelling as "lacquer" would lead you to believe !!! The fine folks making the paints for us have to know these things, the hobbyist doesn't need / want to know all that .... "just tell us what to thin it with, and I'm good to go" approach is what the manufacturers understand.
How many other forum members here could really care about what we're discussing ???
Mark R. wrote:Hey CareyHow many other forum members here could really care about what we're discussing ??? Mark.
Does it matter??? We're having fun, aren't we. Reminds me of the discussion a friend and I had on the relative strenght of L-girder, vs. open grid work benchwork. I think we could have filled up 20 pages of discussion on that alone!