The Johnny Do It Yourself Wiki!
Repair Tips:
Subjects in this section deal with any type of tips for repairing the figures, horses etc.
What glue works for what?
Replacement springs, rivets, clevis pins?
Molding a part
Tooth Marks
Head Swapping
Etc.
Technique #1 - General Scratch Removal
From a post by Brian the Irwin:
To remove scratches in clear plastic here is a little secret from the robot world on how they bring those foggy scatched clear plastic domes and face plates back to mint looking condition. The same procedure will work wonders on any hard plastic body as long as the piece is deemed restorable.
- Start with 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper used wet, apply very light pressure and sand at 45 degree angles to the scratches, you want to blend or feather it in a larger arear than the scratch and follow the contour of the part. After most of the scratch is removed change to 800 grit sandpaper to remove the sanding marks of the 400 grit sandpaper, then use 1200 grit sandpaper to smooth it even more, all the sanding is done wet.
- Now the fun begins. Use Novus #3 scratch remover, I use the blue shop towels that comes on a roll that you can get at Home Depot or Lowes. When you think you are done do at least 1 more coat of #3.
- Next use Novus #2 until the part is crystal clear or until you can no longer see the scatches on colored plastic.
- The last step is to polish it, bet you think I'm I'm going to say use Novus #1, nope. The best product to use is Kleenmaster Brillianize, it's even better to use than Novus#1 for robot clean up. It doesn't attack chrome plated plastic like Novus #1.
- If you are like I am, you don't want to spend a couple of hours of hand buffing. I use a Foredom BL-1 buffing lath with soft cotton buffs for the Novus #3, #2 and change the buff wheel to a cotton string for the final polish. If you use this approach you want to use a SLOW speed and move the part in random patterns and use very little pressure.
Tap Plastic has the best prices on Novus products and Kleenmaster Brillianize and they also have wet/dry sandpaper to 2500 grit.
Technique #2 - Melt Mark Removal.
Many of the JW horses get marks on them from the chemical reaction between the soft plastic tack and the hard plastic used for the horse. If the mark is not too deep, you can liberally coat the mark with 3 in 1 oil and use Grade 0000 steel wool to buff it out. Experiment on a throw away horse first!
Technique #3 - Pin hole or gash fix.
Sometimes ol Johnny has had a rough life. He's got nicks and gouges, rough scuffs, pin-holes (dag nab arrows!) or even tooth marks. Here's a technique that you may want to try to restore him. Again, always practise these techniques on a throw away before trying it on that $300 Jed Gibson!
The basic idea is to transplant some of the plastic from one area to another to fill in a void.
- Depending on the size of the void to fill, scrape off some plastic from inside the neck hole or hip/shoulder holes near the center of the body. A sharp X-acto knife works well.
- Stuff these plastic shavings into the void to fill - OK if it sticks up.
The next part is the tricky part... What you are going to do is heat up a metal implement of the right size and lightly touch the plastic shavings and form the new melted shavings into the body following the molded contours etc. What implement you use really depends on your preference and the area you are trying to fill. If you have a large, flat area a normal table spoon should work fine. For smaller, more contoured areas you may consider using a dental tool that is shaped like a little spoon.
- Heat the 'spoon' tip using your safest heat source - It doesn't have to get red-hot, just hot enough to melt the shavings.
- Quickly press the hot spoon against the shavings and smooth it out following the existing molded contours.
- Reheat / rework as necessary.
- Cool the area with drops of cold water.
- Some folks use a wood burning scribe for this procedure - but be very careful as this tool gets very hot and if you touch the wrong spot, you may create more problems then your fixing!
Technique #4 - Removing Enamel Paint From Figures
Some kids or Dads just couldn't resist customizing their favorite hero or villain with hobby / model paints back in the 60' and 70's.
Now you have their treasure and you want to restore it to its original (unpainted) condition. But what do you use? Here is a technique that I use.
Here is a picture of the Jed / Maddox figures I just received. You can see that the bodies were swapped and the paint on the Jed body on the right. The painted areas were Yellow strips on the pants, Black boots and suspenders, Silver buttons, White T-Shirt. The paint used was Enamel (oil-based) model paint.
This process uses a strong furniture stripping chemical so follow all safety precautions on the can, wear gloves and don't breath the fumes.
Cleaning Technique:
- Coat painted area with furniture paint stripper
- Immediately scrub with toothbrush
- Wash off residue with hand soap, toothbrush and warm water
- Repeat
- For tough areas, gently scrap off paint with toothpick.
Details:
Here's the stripper I use. It's called Tuff-Strip and I bought it at Lowes.
Whatever stripper you buy make sure it is strong and a gel.
The directions say to put the stripper on and wait a while to let the paint bubble up but that's not necessary. You don't want to let the gel dry else the paint just re-adheres to the figure.
Start by Disassembling the figure
Here you can see the Jed body with all the painted parts.
Using a disposable paint brush, brush the stripping gel onto the painted area.
Work on small sections and just goop the stuff on. If you try to work it in, the paint will come off on your application brush.
Then using gloves and a medium hardness toothbrush, start to scrub the area.
Work the brush in a circular motion to get the gel over the widest area.
Once the gel stops working, hold the piece under water and scrub with the toothbrush until the gel residue is all washed off.
Repeat the process again and again until all the paint is gone. Then using the same toothbrush use hand soap and the brush to really clean it. Make sure their is no residue of the stripper left on the part.
If there are some small areas of paint left that wouldn't come off, use a wooden toothpick or popsicle stick to gently scrap the paint off.
Here you see the final results.
It took me about 30 minutes to clean Jed up.
I can still see where the yellow paint actually dyed the plastic on the legs a little. No way to get this out but it is barely noticeable. The Black, silver and white came off with no trace left behind.
I'm pretty happy with the results.
Before I tried the stripper I had tried
- Tooth paste (works great on the cream bodies to clean that brownish staining off)
- All household cleaners
- Paint thinner
- Mineral Spirits
- Gum Spirits
- Diluted acid
Nothing worked except the stripper.
Technique #5 - Restoring a Vintage Horse (cleaning and such)
Ol' Paint is suffering. He's worn down, dirty, marked up and generally in sad shape.
Here's a technique I use to restore (or partially restore) him to his former glory. No sculpting, putty or dangerous methods used!
Here's a perfect example!
Thunderbolt is filthy from years of dirty kids hands and sweat!
He also was stored in a box with several other horses and has many spots of paint that rubbed off from the other horses.
He has some very small melt marks, those caused by the saddle blanket on the surface, nothing real deep, just blemishes really.
To top it off, some red magic marker was used for highlights or maybe battle damage.... Kids! Go figure ;-)
Our job is to clean him up and get rid of the paint marks and melt blemishes.
Read on, cowpoke!
List of materials you'll need:
- Toothbrush: soft to medium, large head
- Water based liquid paint remover
- WD-40
- #0000 Steel Wool
- Dish soap
- Towel
See? Not too hard. Here are the pics of the products I used:
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Motsenbocker's Lift Off 5, purchased at Lowes in their
furniture restoration section.
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Close up of the label
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Super Fine #0000 Steel wool pads - Finishing Grade
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Our friend - WD-40
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Now, how do you do it.
Step one is to spray the Lift off over one half of the horse. This stuff is pretty strong but I live dangerously so I'm not wearing gloves or a mask but I only clean 2-3 horses at a time in a well ventilated area.
Once he's sprayed, use the tooth brush and scrub (medium pressure) every part of the one side and the inside of the legs. Then immediately rinse and wash with dish soap. The 'stripper' is pretty mild and will not immediately take off the painted parts. In fact, I use this technique on Pinto's and it works fine. The only time I had paint starting to disappear was on the chest paint (maybe it is thinnest there) but you can stop and wash it off. The scrubbing is what will get the paint not just the stripper.
Then repeat the process on the other side.
Alright, Now TB is as 'clean' as he can get with chemicals and soap. Actually, most of the marks and all of the oil/dirt came off.
Now you need to apply some elbow grease to get rid of the stubborn marks and the melt blemishes.
First, spray the mark / area with WD-40 and use the Steel Wool (in a circular motion) to rub out the mark. For melts this may take a little bit of effort, You don't want to just rub back and forth or you might create scratches. A circular motion is best. For a really tough mark - start right on the mark with the most pressure and work your way outward with less and less pressure, this will 'blend' any buffing marks into the rest of the horse. The WD-40 lubricates the rubbing and helps dissolve the paint/marker marks. Don't do this rubbing without a lubricant or you will scratch the plastic.
Work your way around the horse on those stubborn spots, I have a paper towel handy to wipe it down every now and then. The steel wool and WD - 40 creates a dark slurry that's hard to see through but wipes right off.
If you have a stubborn mark on a painted part, be very careful if you want to try to remove it. Do the same technique as above but rub it very lightly with the steel wool and check it often. Some of the paint will come off but hopefully the mark will get zapped before you wear a hole in the paint! But I think a hole in the paint is better than a big red L on his nose... But that's just me.
After you're all done rubbing and all the marks are gone you can either wash it one more time in dish soap or just buff it off real well with a paper towel. This buffing tip leaves a nice little shine because of the WD-40 and looks very natural for the horse. As a test, I've left WD-40 globbed onto this horse plastic for days without any problems so I don't think the 'oil' reacts with the plastic.
Here's the AFTER shot! He looks pretty darn good to me. And he's headed for my stable. The only 'spot' I couldn't remove was some pink inside his nostril hole. I just didn't want to strip all the paint off of his nose trying to work inside...
Here's the Before and After of a Pinto I did too. Same technique but I only used the steel wool on the brown (Unpainted) parts and used more and harder scrubbing on the painted areas. Worked OK but there are still some marks on the white. The great thing is that the white really got clean! It's like new (except for the scratches) ;-)
Good luck and add anything you learn here!
Technique #6 - Enter your technique here...
Tips
Tip #1 - Figure paint removal : You can use a furniture stripper called Zip Strip (Home Depot, Lowes, Ace). This is very 'caustic' so use it in a well ventilated area and do not let it 'sit' on the plastic very long. Apply with a tooth brush and immediately wipe off. Then wash in warm water and soap to remove any trace of the stripper. They sell a nuetralizing agent that you may want to try as well.
Tip #2 - Ink / Marker removal : Yep, someone 'touched-up' ol Johnny's face with a marker or ink - You may be able to remove it by using a product called Remove-Zit. Put the paste on the affected area for 48-72 hours to let it work then wash off. - Again, experiment on a throw away head or hand first. Also, people have reported that an oxy10 based acne cream will work too.
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