De-greasing before painting

[awins]

Dear friends,

Please can you tell me what you use to degrease before painting your models and where to purchase this from.
In the good old days I would of used Cellulose Thinners but its not to easy to find this day and age.
Cheers boys many thanks Alan.

[chris vine]

Hi Awins,

I used cellulose thinners, although usually this is sold as gunwash these days. you should be able to buy a gallon of it at any automotive paint supplier.

There is also something called prepaint or words to that effect from the same place.

The only trouble with both of these is that they evaporate very quickly and so tend to leave the grease on the surface but just spread about. So you need to use lots or use it on a really damp cloth and keep turning over so that a new surface is absorbing the muck.

Don't use washing up liquid as it will leave a residue behind. There may be some other water based detergent specially designed for this job. the advantage of this would be that it can be applies suffiently to dissolve the grease and then run off, taking it with it.

Personally I grit blasted everything first but this is a lot of trouble!

What do others use??

Chris.

[baggo]

Hi Alan,

I've been using POR15 Marine Clean which is a water based industrial strength cleaner and degreaser. I got mine from Frost Auto Restoration Techniques (usual disclaimer).

You can dilute it with up to 5 parts water so it goes a long way. I usually make up a bath of it and then dunk parts in it and scrub with a brush. It works even better if hot. You then just rinse with clean water. Be aware though that steel parts cleaned with this stuff will start to rust on the surface very quickly so you need to get some primer on pretty quick.

If I'm not going to paint anything straight away after using the Marine Clean I follow Chris's method and give it a wipe with cellulose thinners just before priming.

If you've already run the engine and bits are oily it pays to get the oil off first with paraffin or similar.

John

[ron]

I agree with Chris, gritblast gives a very good surface for paint to adhere to, celly thinners are still easily obtainable from auto paint factors and some autoshops and there is the more expensive 'panel wipe' from the same source.
Ron

[SteveW]

Guys,

The trouble I had using water to clean was steel parts rusted before my eyes. More so the grit blasted bits.

Now I'm a motor cyclist I've discovered chain cleaner available in convenient spray containers available from all good motorcycle shops.

Ideally you need to use the base solvent that works with your chosen paint.

Also watch those finger prints. I used the Hammerite special metals primer for brass etc which turns out to be water based. This stuff won't stick to finger prints and you only find out as you spray.

[Tony K]

These were some thoughts in 2006 ....

2006 Thread on de-greasing