RUMCars Forum
General Category => Unusual Microcar Discussion => Topic started by: Jonathan Poll on April 30, 2012, 02:28:15 PM
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Hello all,
You lot probably remember Vinyl Paint. My Nobel seats have been painted with vinyl painted back in the days. Underneath seems to be reasonable, so I would like to keep those seats until I find a perfect match for new vinyl.
Does anyone know a good way to remove the old paint? I want to keep the original stuff as good as possible.
Thanks, Jonathan
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Dear Jonathan
The only vinyl paint I have seen is blue tartan paint. At one time they did red spotted paint on a whit background. It was very difficult to wash off. You may have to peel it off.
Chris Thomas
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Try smooth peanut butter or gritty Swargega perhaps. And YES, peanut butter IS a good cleaner: very finely abrasive particles + oil to lift penetrate and lift dirt and stuff off a surface.
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Chris, this paint is black, so is it maybe normal paint? Doesn't peel of, for sure.
Marcus, I've treid abrasives, and they don't work.
Interesting about the peanut butter though!
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Googled and found the answers. People say use soft thinners or acetone. I'll give it a try on a small part first,n then wash of before it melts with water.
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Also try some meths.
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Be very careful where you test the acetone, that will just melt the face off some plastics on contact. I'd try isopropyl alcohol first. Mr Muscle oven cleaner or caustic soda crystals are also very good at getting some paint off some plastics. the problem is always what type of paint and what type of plastic. If the paint is bonded into the surface you might be better repainting it with something until you can afford to get it recovered.
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Be very careful where you test the acetone, that will just melt the face off some plastics on contact. I'd try isopropyl alcohol first. Mr Muscle oven cleaner or caustic soda crystals are also very good at getting some paint off some plastics. the problem is always what type of paint and what type of plastic. If the paint is bonded into the surface you might be better repainting it with something until you can afford to get it recovered.
Absolutely right, be very careful, if it can dissolve paint it might also attack the vinyl below. Safer to re-paint unless you get the exact specs of the vinyl and the paint. Bear in mind that vinyl is a difficult plastic to get paint to stick to, so it probably has a solvent to let it slightly dissolve the top layer of the vinyl, then the solvent evaporates and paint and vinyl become one. Even if you DO get the paint off without damaging the vinyl below, it might already have been stained or discoloured by the solvents in the special paint formulated to stick to vinyl. Get specialist/expert advice, or just do another coat over the top!
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Well, I tested standard cellulose thinners on a small area, then wiped off with water. UIt does remove it, but it sort of spreads the paint around, so once the tissue is covered in paint, it just spreads the opther pazint around. It would do the job with a bit of work.
I guess I'll just have to look for some original interior, since I want my car to be as original, and my dad thinks my seat is too bad to keep. I would have patched it up.
Anyone got some nobel seats? :D
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All my similar patterned Nobel style material has been sold, unfortunately. Ideal for a loose cover to protect original and now slightly fragile originals.
Indecently I still have a steering column here and found a gear lever, Wilksie. No stress just so neither of us forget. Was it your car that wanted a rear mudguard, should anyone have one?
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Does anybody know where you can get the Tartan paint?
The one I used last was McTavish
Chris Thomas
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Thats what you send out the new apprentice for, 3 tins of tartan paint and 2 dozen sky hooks!
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All my similar patterned Nobel style material has been sold, unfortunately. Ideal for a loose cover to protect original and now slightly fragile originals.
Indecently I still have a steering column here and found a gear lever, Wilksie. No stress just so neither of us forget. Was it your car that wanted a rear mudguard, should anyone have one?
Nope, have spares of them, but I am looking for an original nobel mudguard in reasonable condition. If no one does, I'll make one out of an old trailer mudguard.
JP
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Dear Bob
That and a long weight.
Chris Thomas
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Or a bag of spare sparks for an angle grinder, spare bubble for a spirit level, or spark plug gaps, or a six inch skirting ladder, or even a bag of greased nuts
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Dear Marcus
When I was in the scouts we had a member by the name of Arthur Dingwall who baught himself a compass to help him with mapping and hiking and took it back to the shop because it only pointed north.
Chris Thomas
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Thats funny, I have one in for restoration that has the same problem!
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Oddly enough I DO have a compass which points South, and not accurately either. I think was magnetised incorrectly, then the the South end of the needle was painted instead of the North. I should give it to Squeak, then she will get to her destination!
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Every 500,000 years the Earths North and South poles swap places. Hang on to that compass, it could come in handy!
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I know you are a bit older than the rest of us Barry but I didnt think you would have rememberd back quite that far! ;D ;D I have a regular job sorting reverse polarity, a pal with an antiques shop has a display cabinet full of small compasses all crammed in close together, the stronger ones reverse the weaker ones and I get the job of changing them back. Easy job!
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Bob, you need Kelvin's Balls and Flinder's Bar.
Ooer Madam.
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Bob, the ball compass on you old Messerschmitt works the wrong way round - clever as you can see the direction you are going in (not so good if you dont know it points the wrong way).
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Yes, I have a modern car compass which is like that, very handy.
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Does anybody know where you can get the Tartan paint?
The one I used last was McTavish
Chris Thomas
I went to a museum place and they had a tart on paint worth thousands. She had hips like a Nobel shape so maybe that helps.
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Every 500,000 years the Earths North and South poles swap places. Hang on to that compass, it could come in handy!
Does the equator feel left out?
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Bob, you need Kelvin's Balls and Flinder's Bar.
Ooer Madam.
Polite people say Kelvins spheres Marcus! ;) No, the spheres and flinders bar were for correction of a compass fitted to those new fangled iron hulled ships.
Ah, Lord Kelvin who held back the development of the marine compass by a hundred years! My father was a compass maker and always said that Dent made the best British compasses with features like the patent bubble trap verge! The first compass to be adopted by the British Navy as a life boat compass. More famous for making the clock movement in the Westminster tower though.
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Bob, the ball compass on you old Messerschmitt works the wrong way round - clever as you can see the direction you are going in (not so good if you dont know it points the wrong way).
Did I leave that in the car? I wondered what had happen to that! Circa 1957 satnav!
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Every 500,000 years the Earths North and South poles swap places. Hang on to that compass, it could come in handy!
Quite unusual, so I guess in 250 000 years, north will be east?
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Ah, Lord Kelvin
Who scientifically is remembered for quantifying and measuring cool. Who wants a compass that works if it looks bad? See Cat, Red Dwarf not Dwain Dibbly.
Meanwhile I am happy if it is either Pole as they work harder for longer and cheaper than the British equivalent from Greenwich. Its just a bit annoying they will not stay put and especially where the advertised position was but wonder around a bit.
Interesting topic and into research mode about Flinder's bar
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That's partly my point Al, Lord Kelvin perpetuated production of the dry card compass for far longer than it should have been made purely for commercial reasons, they do wobble around a bit, a spirit or oil fill compass dampers the movement down and is far easier to use. Try using a WW1 prismatic marching compass and then switch to a Mk3 Prismatic WW2 jobby, a world of difference, the former is dry, the latter is alcohol filled. My father made full size ships compasses for LIlley and Reynolds ltd, they had to be tested at the National physical laboratory at Teddington, they froze them then boiled them to make sure they were unburstable! I do work now for one of the few surviving compass adjusters left in the Uk. They talk a different language, heeling error, swinging the compass, azimuth etc etc.
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Mmm. Azimuth. I like that word.
Its great to have family that made real things. You can have one or point to it and say my Uncle did that. Not quite the same when you can only say my Uncle prevented people using that thing that Bob's uncle made properly and now its redundant. I am mindful that my cars are not really mine but passing through my hands on a longer trip, hopefully, than I have to the future. Not that most will be special because I had them but in lieu of making something from scratch its as good as I can get. My father had a hand in many a project but never outright and it is amazing how much of that has disappeared already.
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Billions of blue blistering binnacles! I remember visiting the bridge of RMS Queen Elisabeth on our way to New York in July 1964. Lots of windows and various controls and instruments which made no sense to me, but the Gosport Tubes, wheel and compass binnacle fascinated me, lots of luvverly brass. We were allowed to shout down the tube to the engine room. We did also visit the engine rooms, and could see huge shiny propeller shafts disappearing into the distance. Did the same in SS France two years later, and also a few years earlier saw around the Blue Star Liner Argentina Star on our way to Montevideo. I have very vague memories too of our first journey out to Montevideo on the SS Highland Brigade (which is shown on a few web sites). She was built in the late 1920s and looks so old fashioned that I find it hard to believe I once sailed on such an old ship. The dining room was done up to look like Tudor black beam and white plaster buildings, with bay windows looking in to it at 2nd floor level. I remember not being able to understand if we were inside the ship or outside in a square courtyard surrounded by four big buildings facing us. It's my earliest childhood memory.
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Mmm. Azimuth. I like that word.
Its great to have family that made real things. You can have one or point to it and say my Uncle did that. Not quite the same when you can only say my Uncle prevented people using that thing that Bob's uncle made properly and now its redundant. I am mindful that my cars are not really mine but passing through my hands on a longer trip, hopefully, than I have to the future. Not that most will be special because I had them but in lieu of making something from scratch its as good as I can get. My father had a hand in many a project but never outright and it is amazing how much of that has disappeared already.
I know what you mean Al, I dont suppose I will leave anything tangible for posterity, maybe a certain replica vehicle but every now and then a compass by Lilley and Reynolds passes through my hands and if its post war and before 1978ish I get this eerie feeling that my dad almost certainly made it, I also come across sextants that have his signature on the collimation certificate in the lid of the box. I miss him a lot!
Anyway, enough of this idle chat about compasses, now there's a thought, will compass fluid[alcohol] remove vinyl paint? Back on topic!!