Print Removal Tutorial

[xwingyoda]

Guys and Gals,

I finally decided to try some print removal on torsos for an upcoming project and it works really great ;-)

Since there are not much tutorials on EB, I decided to do a small one ;-)

I hope this will help you in some ways !!

First, lets start with what you need

All what you need is on that pic ;-)

* "polish" (the material used to remove scratches and polish a car) commonly known as "Brasso" (which is the name of a brand ;-) )

* loads of cotton buds

* Printed Lego material

First here is an old grey HP fig that will be print less :-P

The method is really easy but time (and cotton buds) consumming !! Put a little bit of Polish on the cotton bud and apply on the printed part. Rub continuously the part with the cotton bud !!

You can actually hear when it works because of the scratching noise it makes !! Look at the cotton bud becoming darker and coloured !!

Be patient my padawans because its really time consumming, but at the end, you have a perfectly monochromatic part with unaltered colour ;-)

From my example, our little HP friend is good as new ;-)

Once its finished, rinse and dry !!

You might want to apply a little bit more if the resuslt is not perfect (its hard to see when the fig is not perfectly cleaned ;-) ).

I hope this short tutorial helped. Do not hesitate to ask question and talk about your techniques and stories !!

Rub On !!

*yoda*

Edited May 13, 2006 by xwingyoda

[gylman]

Have you tried this with trans-clear. i.e. when you are done, is it still trans, and clear?

It would be awesome to get a bunch of clear walls from the useless basketball backboards.

http://peeron.com/inv/parts/3754px6

(the pictured one is red, but most are clear).

[xwingyoda]

Gyl, I will try tomorrow with a trans clear part and will let you know the results (and show you) ;-)

Too bad I don't have those Basketball parts in trans !! The two I have are red >:-(

*yoda*

Edited May 13, 2006 by xwingyoda

[Berry Syedow]

There are a couple of questions I

[xenologer]

Disclaimer: I havent ever tried removing a print from a piece

Brasso car polish? sounds abrasive

Why not try just plain rubbing alcohol?

or paint thinner (danger, might melt plastic)?

[Jipay]

The polish for cars has many properties, it cleanes, but it also keep this varnished aspect that lego pieces need. I guess this is why this product is used by most of the brick moders

[snefroe]

i'm using "Sidol", which is a product to clean brass and it works fine.

Never ever use thinner. i tried to clean a plastic model once by dropping it into a bottle of thinner and ... hm... the model was completely gone after a while, there was only this plastic substance... sort of.. :'-( X-O

[xwingyoda]

Gylman,

Here is an exemple on a Tie cockpit, see for yourself ;-)

As you can see, it stays clear hehe

Berry Syedow,

Indeed Polish leaves small scratches ;-) It alll depends on the amount of printing and if the printing is heavilly applied !! On the 5 torsos I applied polish to, some of them do not have scratches and some have minimal scratches (however I'm not 100% sure since those torsos are not brand new !!)

I noticed using polish on the Tie cokpit for Gyl, that it actually leaves small scratches !! However the printing was quite hard to get rid off !! The scratches are quite small also !! They don't appear on those pics !!

Hope that helped !!

*yoda*

[gylman]

Gylman,

Here is an exemple on a Tie cockpit, see for yourself ;-)

As you can see, it stays clear hehe

Wow. Thanks. I think we have some Brasso somewhere in the house..... I'm off to hunt it down (as well as all those useless basketball backboards!!)

[Echo]

Making this topic was a good idea Yoda! I Brassoed a piece yesterday and discovered that cotten balls work better than Q-Tips.

[gylman]

Yoda, how long does it take to do a minifig? I've been rubbing away here with Brasso for a few minutes, and not really getting anywhere.

[xwingyoda]

Yoda, how long does it take to do a minifig? I've been rubbing away here with Brasso for a few minutes, and not really getting anywhere.

Well Gyl, torsos or usually not that long !! But it depends on which torsos though: some were quicker than others (go figure !!). As a whole I think it takes around 10 minutes per torso to have a clean result.

I would suggest adding more Brasso or rubbing longer.

Good luck Gyl, and I hop I answered your question ;-)

Rub On !!

*yoda*

[natelite]

well, i notice the scrubbed area of the tie cockpit looked a little opague vs the unscrubbed area. for best comparison check out the the 4 o'clock vs the 8 o'clock area. but that's only if you looked hard enough.

did you scrub in a vertical motion? i think i saw vertical lines on the tie windshield. maybe if you do it in a circular motion the scratches will be harder to notice?

[Skinny Boy]

Wow. I can't believe it worked :-D Yay. I used it on one of the new pilot minifigures. Don't worry, I only erased the Airplane logo. It looks so much better. I'll recommend this to all my Lego-Loving friends. Thanks Yoda

[twilight deity link]

ok so if I had a orange shirt with designs it would keep the orange but get rid of the designs?

[Starwars4J]

ok so if I had a orange shirt with designs it would keep the orange but get rid of the designs?

Correct. Well, as long as it was a lego shirt :-P

[twilight deity link]

thank you

[JINZONINGEN73]

Is this easy to do on older figures? You'd think that UV radiation or whantnot would slightly discolor the area surrounding a decal, thereby leaving the area under the decal more in original color (as in, removing the decal would leave a ghostly silhouette of the decal).

then again, Lego is one of those quality items with color-fastness like I've NEVER seen on ANY product, much less a toy.

[Norrington]

Well, Jinzo, I Imagine it would, but I'm not willing to test it. The only torso's like that I have are Imperial Gaurd or Soldier torsos... They're far to rare... :'-(

[SlyOwl]

I'm thinking of doing some of this, but I would like to know how accurate the removal is? Is it possible to remove very small areas of print accurately? For example, would it be possible to remove just the headset from this face

to get a nice grimacing one?

Thanks *y*

[Starwars4J]

I'm thinking of doing some of this, but I would like to know how accurate the removal is? Is it possible to remove very small areas of print accurately? For example, would it be possible to remove just the headset from this face

to get a nice grimacing one?

Thanks *y*

Yes it is, I can't find the link right now, but someone from the Minifig Customization Network was able to remove just the eyes (in order to replace with a custom decal) around a full beard. With a steady hand it can be very precise.

[Lamanda2]

Hello,

Yoda, you say that it takes you about 10 minutes per torso using this method of cottonbuds and Brasso. I have found that putting Brasso on a paper towel, or a rag, works extremely well. What you do is put the rag on your working surface, using one hand to keep it held down, and take the torso you wish to clear in the other hand and rub it against the Brasso-ed rag.

The results are very quick, about 15 seconds I can acheive with my rag (Something about the material, it works well). You should definetely be able to get them cleared in less than a minute this way. :-)

"Yes it is, I can't find the link right now, but someone from the Minifig Customization Network was able to remove just the eyes (in order to replace with a custom decal) around a full beard. With a steady hand it can be very precise."

Yes, Pharazon was the one who did this.

His method was to put the Brasso on a toothpick, I have tried this myself and it works excellent for remove certain details from a piece. *y*

~Amanda

[xwingyoda]

Yoda, you say that it takes you about 10 minutes per torso using this method of cottonbuds and Brasso. I have found that putting Brasso on a paper towel, or a rag, works extremely well. What you do is put the rag on your working surface, using one hand to keep it held down, and take the torso you wish to clear in the other hand and rub it against the Brasso-ed rag.

The results are very quick, about 15 seconds I can acheive with my rag (Something about the material, it works well). You should definetely be able to get them cleared in less than a minute this way. :-)

Tks Amanda for the info ;-)

I was afraid that it would leavr marks on the plastic therefater but you proved me wrong ;-)

Time reduction On !!

*yoda*

[Barbossa]

I have actually been using tooth paste when removing paint from my minifgs. Works well but takes some time; the good thing is that your minfig breath improves quite a lot. :-)

[Shadows]

Added to the customization index.

Barbossa: Does toothpaste scratch? Is one kind better than another, like baking soda type, etc?