Removing prints from the 3785 ACW / Western wagon´s cover

[Hadoque]

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!

[Hadoque]

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:

[Hadoque]

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...

[Hadoque]

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.

[Hadoque]

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.

[Hadoque]

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. 


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.

[Hadoque]

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.

[Hadoque]

And here is the result, all printing gone!

[Hadoque]

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   
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.

[Hadoque]

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.