PlaymoFriends
Creative => How-To => Topic started by: Hadoque on January 29, 2018, 21:06:25
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The 1970s and 1980s Western Covered Wagons all come with the wagon-cover (hood?) in a kind of light-brown (or very-dark-beige);
Looking at the pictures of such a wagon past weekend, I once more thought about the specific colour of the wagon-cover.
I don´t like that it is almost the same light-brownish colour as the wagon´s wheels and some other parts. Too dark imho and the colour gets only darker with age.
I prefer the colour of the wagon-cover of the DS-version set 7648
http://playmodb.org/setpics/7/7648.jpg
So, I decided I wanted to equip my 3278 Covered Wagon from the 1980s with a lighter wagon-cover.
But I did not want to take away the lighter-coloured ones from my DS-wagons, which date back from about a decade ago.
And those lighter-coloured wagon-covers are since long not available anymore from DS, and extremely hard to find on ebay or such.
But, the wagon-covers from ACW-set 3785, which are basically the same colour as the cover from the DS wagon, are still to be regularly found as loose parts.
Only problem: They have a reasonbly large printing on both sides!
So, time to erase the printing from such one!
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There are several ways to remove prints from Playmobil figures, as f.e. discussed here in Tahra´s thread;
http://www.playmofriends.com/forum/index.php?topic=14320.0
Removing larger prints is of course a bit more difficult (or a bit harder work) then removing relative small printing from klickies.
There are several ways to do it , I will only explain the method / products that I prefered for the wagon-cover print-removal.
After the explanation, people are welcome to offer their comments and or suggestions and or to tell about their own methods. :)
Below the wagon-cover in question:
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For removing small prints on klickies or their accessories, I usually use soft (white) pencil-erasers, on some occasions harder pen-erasers.
Working with pen-erasers goes a little faster then with softer pencil-erasers, but it might leave sometimes a few scratches, and also the shine disappears somewhat with the print, so the cleaned areas become a bit more dull.
For this larger wagon-cover print-removal, I decided to use a combination of pen-erasers, pencil-erasers and a "print-& varnish"-remover for plastics used in hobby-modelling.
(No extreme fine sandpaper like Hauden_Lukas sometimes uses, I keep that material aside for much finer work)
Below the products for this case...
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I started first with the pencil-eraser (that is the blue end on the double-coloured gummie).
A bit of good & relative hard rubbing, and it worked quite good, printing was coming off well, even on the most dark-coloured areas.
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When a lot of the printing was gone, I switched to a piece of somewhat softer (white) pencil-eraser gummie.
So I would have no chance of getting scratches on places where the printing was already reasonably gone.
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To remove the last & sometimes hardest bits, and to go over it entirely to have every little spot removed, I used the fluid print-remover for plastics.
It says "Druck- und Lackentferner" on the label, so it most probably also whipes away (somewhat) of the varnish of the plastic.
But Playmo is not that shiny anyway. And I´ll come back to the topic of getting the shine back further down in the thread.
This product comes in a small bottle. One should use it carefully, because it is probably toxic (though there is no warning on the flask).
So best in a ventilated room (window open) and with a mouth-cover.
Don not inhale the vapour!
And certainly do not drink it, even if you are very thirsty, or when having accidentally swallowed ink before. ;D
Take a clean piece of cloth, and put some drops of the print-reomver on it.
Wipe hard & long enough and everywhere over the (remaing) printing. If necessary, add more drops of the fluid on the piece of cloth.
It might also be a good idea to wear plastic house-hold gloves on your hands when using this product.
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For rubbing in edges between higher & lower surfaces (or in corners or such), I used the blunt tip of an old dining-knife wrapped in the cloth.
I didn´t wear gloves and so I also sometimes just used my fingernails with the thin cloth to rub in the difficult to reach areas on the wagon-cover surfaces. So my hands came in contact directly with the print-remover on the cloth, not everyone will find that a good idea.
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And here is the result, all printing gone!
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And here is the result, all printing gone!
At one side at least, then I still had to remove the same print on the other side of the wagon-cover 8}
So I took a break and went for a smoke...
I had been working in the veranda, and when I got back it was already getting a bit dark outside.
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So, same procedure all over for removal of the print on the second side...
Second pic below shows the point where I switched again from the pen-& pencil-erasers to the Plastic Print Remover bottle.
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And here the result, all printing gone on the 2nd side too! :yippee:
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As said earlier, with use of the pen-eraser gum - and certainly with the print-remover bottle that also is designed to remove varnish, at least according to the label - the plastic has become a bit dull. Not that much, but it is not as shiny anymore as it was.
So, first a bit of cleaning with a mix of kitchen-products (cleaners) and water.
Drying the plastic with a clean piece of cloth or with kitchen-paper, and in doing so rubbing good & long enough will (usually) already bring a bit of the shine back.
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And to bring a lot more of the shine back, one can use the "synthetic materials / plastics - polisher" from the same brand as the print-& varnish-remover.
Be attentive not to mix up both bottles, they look quite the same, just the label is different!
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The end-result of both sides of the wagon-cover after use of the above mentioned plastics-polisher:
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Btw, don´t forget to clean the floor after use of pen- & pencil-eraser gums ;)
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Time to get out the box with covered Western-wagons.
The one on the right, that is the 1980s one with the brownish cover!
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So, here she (he?) is, the covered wagon from set 3278.
Some probably like a lot the beige-brown colour of the cover.
But to me, I find a lighter colour better. That is one of the reasons why I already exchanged the original wheels with more modern ones (different axels needed for that), the colour of the cover-colour almost matched the wheel-colour.
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Hup, here is the wagon equipped with the cover from the ACW-wagon with the prints gone :)
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Here the newly equipped one (left) together with the DS-version 7648 (right).
I might have polished a bit too much, the wagon-cover now looks even brighter then the one from the DS-wagon ;D
That´s it! :wave:
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Job well done and thank you for sharing. BTW love how you put the bit about the gloves and wearing them after you state to apply the varnish remover Lol
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Thank you for the detailed tutorial, Hadoque!
I would like to get that "removal fluid"....
(I have no issues with the original wagon cover - except for variety)