striping cured UV coating from plastics substrate

I have been in the plastics coating arena for some time using sputter coatings and UV coatings. If you have a quality UV topcoat it is going to be difficult to strip. Most of the chemicals you could use will damage the plastic, i.e., acetone, MEK etc.

The only way that I know of is a durability test that one of our customers had us use. It will take some time but we had to pass a test that the coating would stay in good condition after 24 hours in Lestoil. I had no idea that this cleaner was as aggressive as it is. This even stripped sputtered aluminum from the plastic.

Good luck.

For more ideas contact John Feeley at Precision Color Coatings in Plymouth Connecticut.

Thanks jmelia1952,

it seems very difficult to use chemical solution to strip the UV coat without demaged the plastic substrate. how about grinding of the paint ?

A strong alkali at an elevated temperature might hydrolyze the coating, but it will not affect the ABS. You need about 5% sodium hydroxide and whatever temperature the plastic will tolerate.

Easy to test, drano without the aluminum shavings will work for testing, if you cannot find any sodium hydroxide. There is a product called Gilletts lye, which in mainly sodium hydroxide, and most hardware stores have this or another brand of lye.

be cautious, burns skin eyes etc.

Great idea. Some UV coatings are resistant but most are not. We have used that but a long time ago. Yes--be very careful and well ventilated

Have you looked into CO2 (dry ice) blasting or grit blasting?

http://www.enviro-blast.com/

http://www.icetech.dk/dib_0.asp

With CO2, there are no water treatment systems or NPDES permits and it is nontoxic. Although, I am not sure how well it will work on UV coatings. I provided you two links for some companies that provide the systems and the dry ice.

Have used two methods for UV encapsulated electronics with success.

First, long term soak in "metho" usually softens the UV cured coatings and makes them able to be removed by relatively gentle brushing. (By long term, I'm implying 72 hours completely immersed at 20 Deg C.)

Second method is for another material where the metho wasn't succesful and that involved highly alkaline solution around 50Deg C with ultrasonic vibration giving reasonable result in around 10 minutes.

Both methods have merit, but both might be unsuccesful on your painted layer.

If the parts are to be painted again, why not paint over what's already there?

Thanks, Just an Engineer,

most of the uv coated surface is not able to repaint, poor in adhesion

I will try the suggestions you mentioned.

I have separately sent you contact details for "Kolb" cleaning products in Asia/Pacific and you can contact them directly.

They should be able to recommend a solution to your challenge and provide you with equipment quotations for the task.

Thank you very much, Just an Engineer.

I had wrote to " Kolb" and waiting for the feedback.

Regards,

Surface