Moebius kit chrome: is it different from other manufacturers?

[Mark]

Last weekend I picked up a set of wheel covers from the Moebius '71 Ford pickup.  I wanted to get an extra one to incorporate into a master that I intend to make castings of.  I've got some leftover Castrol Super Clean that normally makes short work of the vacuum plating as well as the underlying lacquer, but the Moebius plating is unfazed by it.  Anyone else have trouble stripping plating from Moebius kit parts?

[Art Anderson]

Last weekend I picked up a set of wheel covers from the Moebius '71 Ford pickup.  I wanted to get an extra one to incorporate into a master that I intend to make castings of.  I've got some leftover Castrol Super Clean that normally makes short work of the vacuum plating as well as the underlying lacquer, but the Moebius plating is unfazed by it.  Anyone else have trouble stripping plating from Moebius kit parts?

I just sprayed down a tree of wheels from this very kit with Easy-Off Oven Cleaner (yellow cap on the can--contains sodium hydroxide--a/k/a lye).  The plating and the base coating were gone in about 10 minutes.

Art

[Danno]

~Disclaimer~  I have no idea if this is what you're dealing with, but . . . 

Super Clean has a life.  The more you use it, the less potent it is.  If you used "leftover" CSC, it may have been used up.  

CSC and Easy-Off generally produce similar results (although E-O generates more obnoxious fumes than CSC), so I'm guessing it's not so much the Moebius chrome/process as it is the potency of your leftover CSC.  

~Second Disclaimer~ Just thoughts.  No disrespect meant for your CSC's virility or impotence.

 

[Mark]

The Super Clean, though old, is still effective.  I've used it on other manufacturers' plating before, and after, dropping the Moebius kit part in there...so it's still good.

After thoroughly rinsing and drying the part, I shot it with Dawn Power Dissolver (smells and acts similar to spray oven cleaner) and the plating is starting to budge.  I'll leave it overnight and mess with it tomorrow after I get home from work.

[peteski]

I don't have any of those kits to check but I know that some companies (like Trumpeter) actually electroplate their plastic parts with chrome (or maybe nickel) instead of vacuum-aluminizing like most other manufacturers do.

The vacuum-aluminizing deposits just few microns of aluminum over plastic (which is easily melted away by caustic solvents). Electroplated parts have much thicker layer of metal on them and the metal is more resistant to the chemicals we use for stripping plating.  Electroplating is also much tougher to scrape off.

Maybe that is what you are seeing on Mobius kits?

[Travis T]

I tried brand new Purple Power on the same kit, nothing happened.

[Mark]

The plating is similar to that used by Revell and Round 2.  Moebius didn't try to reinvent the wheel (unlike Trumpeter) so they seem to have avoided the pitfalls that did Trumpeter in with car kits.

[peteski]

If the plating (vacuum metalizing) is similar to what has been used by model companies for years then any strong solution of lye (sodium hydroxide) like Purple Power should be able to strip it. Maybe there is a heavier layer of clear lacquer over the metalizing and the stripper needs more time to work through it?