brake fluid

[bloke]

Has anyone successfully used this to strip lacquer? Yeah, I'm just curious. I have no specific reason for asking.

[arpthark]

No, but I have some here, and numerous junk trumpets. I can experiment...?

[bloke]

No, but I have some here, and numerous junk trumpets. I can experiment...?

I've seen pictures of it having done some pretty bad damage to automobiles' paint jobs via accidental spillings. In the pictures, the areas where it hit it completely stripped down to the metal.

[the elephant]

I spilled some brake fluid (DOT 3) on my jeep's frame, and all the black paint bubbled off like stripped lacquer. It was an unhappy discovery. I have never seen it act on modern multi-stage paint (base + clear), but I suspect it would fog the clear rather than melt it free of the steel.

To answer your question: I don't know, but it will strip "some" type of paint, so who knows? I bet it would trash (ruin but maybe not quite remove) nitrocellulose, but it might not do too much to a baked epoxy. I bet it wouldn't even touch old Cleveland-era King orange lacquer.

[gocsick]

A friend of mine, who is a big model builder, tasted of a few products to get epoxy and laquer model paints off injection molded plastics. Methylene chloride melted the plastic (as expected). Brake fluid took several days to soften model paints. He settled something called Testors Easy Lift Off ELO. It worked reasonably quickly and was safe for the plastic even when left on for several hours.

So my guess is that @the elephant is right. I didn't think it will work well on epoxy lacquer.

[bloke]

I spilled some brake fluid (DOT 3) on my jeep's frame, and all the black paint bubbled off like stripped lacquer. It was an unhappy discovery. I have never seen it act on modern multi-stage paint (base + clear), but I suspect it would fog the clear rather than melt it free of the steel.

To answer your question: I don't know, but it will strip "some" type of paint, so who knows? I bet it would trash (ruin but maybe not quite remove) nitrocellulose, but it might not do too much to a baked epoxy. I bet it wouldn't even touch old Cleveland-era King orange lacquer.

rated R for "Reasonably good chance of being Right"

off topic:
I was adding brake fluid to my Toyota (every so often), due to a slow leak (somewhere - ? - in the system...and - luckily - never spilled any ).
Last year, I noticed that the leak had stopped.
My sister refers to phenomena such as these as "Molecular Realignment".

oh yeah...earlier 21st C. Chevy and GMC full-size white "work" vans...They strip with-or-without brake fluid...You should see mine...Here's a web pic of another one:

[Mary Ann]

I always figured those stripped messes were re-paints poorly done after accidents that required replacing parts.

[iiipopes]

I don't know about brass instruments, but the last time I changed and bled the brake fluid on my previous convertible about thirty-five years ago, by the time my friend and I were done, I felt like my lacquer had been stripped. Yes, being my car, I was the lucky one to be under the car with a claw wrench (open the bleed screw, yell push, close the bleed screw, yell release, repeat too many times to count on all four wheel disc brakes, with the rear discs inboard against the Salisbury/Dana 44 differential).

[bloke]

That sounds like it could have been a great Three Stooges filming opportunity.

[gocsick]

A shop air powered vacuum brake blender was really handy to have around... back when I had time and money to own and with on old cars. Oh and when my bones could handle being contorted into strange shapes for hours on end.

[iiipopes]

That sounds like it could have been a great Three Stooges filming opportunity.

Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!