Work has started on removing the brown paint from the Ruston. I don’t think I’ve ever used paint stripper, so I wasn’t sure what to buy. A trip to my local hardware store solved the problem. They had a choice of three different brands and I chose the one that was the smallest in size. Even then it is enough for 5 square metres. That’s a lot of locos!

The process was easy, the gel is brushed over the surface. The paint started coming off immediately – an encouraging sign! This is a very messy job. Wear protective gloves and goggles.

After 5 minutes I scraped the paint off of the surfces. It was looking pretty good.

The instructions recommend a second coat, which is left for 15 minutes. Afterwards I gave the loco a good clean with lots of warm water.

The paint stripper didn’t destroy the expoy glue that holds the kit together and the loco was still intact 🙂 (The big brown strip in the cab is a thick layer of glue).

It did remove most of the paint from the surfaces. There were still small amounts in the details on the loco body and in the difficult to access parts of the cab. To remove the last remnants of paint I used a needle file. The final result is shown in the photo at the beginning of the blog.

Overall, it’s pretty good. And I have enough paint stripper to last me a lifetime…