Major Plastidip Mistake

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Spartan Warrior

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So I've been working on making a foam scout helmet (from Reach) everything has been going great, got it assembled, painted, and weathered. Unfortunately I made one big mistake, I had several sections of the helmet that I wanted to remain black, so I just covered the plastidip with regular masking tape. My schedule was kind of hectic, so painting took several days; a couple of painting sessions were also in pretty hot weather. Fast forward a few more days, the rest of the helmet is finished, weathered and looking awesome. Today I go to remove the masking tape, only to find that it is leaving a good deal of sticky residue and it even pulled up multiple sections of the plastidip.

So obviously it's kind of ruined, I tried to pull up the remaining plastidip, but that didn't really work. I figured my only move is to re-plastidip it, using enough coats to hopefully hide the nasty imperfections. Before I do that, I wanted to see if you guys had any tips on how to remove old plastidip.

I'll try to post some pictures in the morning, so people can see what happens when you improperly use masking tape. :facepalm
 
I remember having issues with masking tape when doing painting at my old home. The stuff works great if you leave it on for a few hours, couple of days and it seems to be a ***** to remove.
No idea if it would have still given you problems if you hadn't left it on for long.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, I sure appreciate it.

Spacemeat - Sounds promising, I'm definitely going to give that a shot. Do I need to be careful to keep the solvent off the foam? I know some chemicals can eat through the foam, want to make sure I don't make any more mistakes! BTW a big thank you for all your foam building tutorials, they have been invaluable!

mux213 - I'm pretty sure the problem was I left it on for days, plus having it sit in the sun for an hour or two didn't help either. Over the course of painting there were a few other sections I ended up masking off, but I removed the taped within a few hours and there wasn't any problems. Lesson learned!

So I'm going to give the solvent a shot and see how it goes. I'll post some before and after pictures when I'm done, will probably do that on Sunday.
 
I looked around and it seems that the Industrial Maintenance Coating Thinner is no longer sold, am I correct in understanding that Xylene will do the same thing?
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Thanks for the replies guys, I sure appreciate it.

Spacemeat - Sounds promising, I'm definitely going to give that a shot. Do I need to be careful to keep the solvent off the foam? I know some chemicals can eat through the foam, want to make sure I don't make any more mistakes! BTW a big thank you for all your foam building tutorials, they have been invaluable!

I looked around and it seems that the Industrial Maintenance Coating Thinner is no longer sold, am I correct in understanding that Xylene will do the same thing?

The solvent is fine with EVA, doesn't eat into it. Xylene should do, but I'm amazed it no longer sold, I picked up a can a few months ago...
 
Where did you usually buy the solvent? I checked Home Depot, Ace, and Lowes and they all showed it as no longer available. :(
 
So today I went out, got myself some Xylene, and got working! I did make a mistake early on, I poured the Xylene into a plastic cup, only to find a minute later that my cup was quickly being eaten alive. So after that I used a aluminum pie dish with much greater success. The xylene worked very well, allowing me to smooth the jagged edges of the torn plastidip. There was still a slightly uneven surface, because when some of the plastidip pulled loose it also took some foam with it. I probably could have filled in those spots with some spackle, but I didn't feel like messing with sanding it. After applying the Xylene I waited 30 minutes and then added four layers of plastidip.

Here is the before images:

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This is after I used the Xylene:

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And this is after I added new Plastidip:

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IMG_1085.jpg

Overall I'm very pleased with the result, a valuable lesson learned. Many thanks to Spacemeat for suggesting using the solvent, I greatly appreciate it! So now I just need to add padding, lights, and a visor and it will finished! I'll post a new thread with pictures once it's all done.
 
Always good to read when someone is able to rescue their hard work! Good stuff!
 
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