best way to take the paint of plastic body parts

[cans]

Wondering if anybody has a good way to take the factory paint off the plastic body parts from a 82 Kat?I dont want to sand off the paint and ruin the plastic.Is there a chemical out that will do the job?

[ctandc]

Sanding won't ruin the plastic. If you plan on painting them again, you're going to need to sand 'em anyway.

[yngveny]

+1

Would prefer sanding to any chamical (atleast one thet eats paint).
You don't need to sand down to plastic either, just enough to get the new paint to stick.

[cannonball]

use a fine grit sandpaper so you don't "cut" the plastic with heavy grit paper. But sanding is the only way to go.

[ukilme]

There is a product for removing paint from fiberglass but I won't trust it especially on plastic.

Like everyone has said sanding is the best way. However, if it is original paint that is in good shape (hardly any major chips or such) then just scuff it with a red scotch bright pad or 600 grit paper. Basically, sand until there is no shine to any part of the paint and you are ready for primer or paint. You can still do this if it is not original paint but I would recommend if it is the only coat of paint.

If the paint is built up with to many coats, it will look crappy and cause problems.

Now if you do 'damage' the plastic part. There is plastic body filler that you can pick up at an auto body/paint supply store or a good body filler can work.

[zackybilly1]

The older fairings were fiberglass and later went to plastic. I just recently painted one of each. On the fiberglass unit, I ended up bead-blasting the paint off of it due to the heavy build-up and big section of paint turning loose from the base coats. The fiberglass castings were rough and therefore, Suzuki used a heavy coat of hi-build filler (pink stuff) to float out the imperfections. The filler coat is softer than the FG resin so it's easy to control removal in the blaster.



After blasting. They were molded in two pieces and then, spliced together.



Plastic one. Sanded original paint, primed & painted.





Z