I was hoping to get the CNW boxcar done-ish for an operating session at my friend Mike’s tomorrow night (he has an incredible CNW layout). I had already painted the ends to fairly good effect (I wasn’t terribly happy with it but I was willing to live with it). Basically all that was left was giving it a good weathering and that’s where things went wrong. Well maybe the fact that one of my new stirrups had disappeared since I had installed them and painted the ends should have been a warning.
I’m not going to post a picture, things starting going wrong and instead of stepping back and stopping I tried soldiering on things quickly got out of hand. To make things worse while cleaning my airbrush I dropped and lost the trigger spring (because I took it apart wrong).
Luckily the spring is available in an inexpensive repair kit and if I’m forced to put a good spin on things I could use an opportunity to learn techniques on removing paint from models and since I’ll have to repaint it applying decals.
That said I put the question out to the wider group what do you use for stripping paint off models? This model has whatever Accurail uses and primarily enamel paints but has some acrylic matte finish as part of the weathering but I also have some failed painting projects that used acrylic paints that need to be stripped as well.
I’d appreciate it if you could leave a comment with what you use!
Matt's Railroad Blog 
I always struggle to strip paint. My friend Chris Vanderheide swears by 91% alcohol that you get at the drug store. I’ve had the at work, but not to my satisfaction. I suspect the difference might be that Chris is used a closed container to soak the model in for hours or perhaps even days on end.
Factory paint from Kato and P2K models in particular can be very stubborn. I’ve found Accurail cars strip easier. Lots of scrubbing was required, and I didn’t get all of it off. Other products include the purple floor cleaner/degreasing stuff that Walmart has. It comes in a purple jug. I’ll look it up and get back to you. That stuff works about as well as alcohol for me. Basically, I find that it depends on the brand of model.
Perhaps the crowd I often interact with doesn’t strip models often but nobody I’ve talked to in person was terribly confident in their answer, usually suggesting I check on the internet 🙂 I’ve heard 91% alcohol a couple times and it’ll probably be one of the first things I try (it’s been a busy fall and now the garage is cold so it might have to wait till warmer weather). “The Internet” does have some interesting recipes of different chemicals and thinking I’d rather hear from someone that they’ve used it rather than finding a post on a random forum involving brake fluid and mixing in various other chemicals.
Is the purple stuff perhaps Purple Power Degreaser? http://www.lowes.com/pd_242634-58116-4320P_0__
Yes, that’s the stuff.