Customising road vehicles

[Julia]

 

I have a couple of H0 scale vehicles that I would like to customise to reflect the names of industries on my layout. 

 

The vehicles are variously made by Brekina, Schuko, and Wiking. Is there an easy way to remove existing sign writing? 

 

I was going to make my own water slide decals. Which will be simple enough for the panel van. For one of the vehicles it is a pickup type vehicle and the sides are a sort of planking type texture. I'm not sure how this will interact with the water slide decals. Does anyone have any advice for how best to do this?

 

Thanks

 

J

[Ragtag]

A lot will depend on the quality of your decal paper - if it's decent then you should be able to use MicroSol or similar to help bed the decals into the grooves. 

 

I usually use a cotton bud with a little nail varnish remover to lift existing branding, but you'd want to be careful using that if the model is plastic.

[BernardTPM]

As all those models are plastic then the first thing to try is Methylated Spirits as it safe on any plastic. Failing that perhaps a very mild abrasive paste, like silver polish or T-Cut.

[fodenway]

Dettol disinfectant, crazy as it sounds, will fetch paint or inks off metal or plastic without damaging the surface. Leave the model to soak overnight. You can safely put it on babies - so how it works on paint must be witchcraft, but it does work - and you can usually re-use the liquid afterwards.