I just purchased a KO MP-12 to customize (just repaint). I am hoping you guys could help give me some advice on dissembling and repainting this guy? I have seen lots of cool repaints but am unsure if I should try to pull the pins out or try to creatively tape parts off. Would you recommend an alcohol bath to remove the old paint? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!


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New post:

As far as advice goes?

1. DO NOT try to soak the clear roof/window assembly in alcohol to remove the paint!!!!! Instead use a dremel set to the lowest speed and a polishing bit (round or cone) and some 800 to 1000 grit sand paper.
DREMEL Felt Polishing Disc, PK 6 - Rotary Tool Accessories - 1UH60|414 - Grainger Industrial Supply

2. If you are using the KO (as I did) first thing you should do is check for cracks in the hinges of the door to roof pins. Both my KO's were cracked and you should put a slight amount of glue on them ASAP so you do not risk breaking one completely.

3. There is a rivet in the shoulder that I could not get out for the life of me. I ended up almost melting the shoulder. All the other rivets are piece of cake to get out. So my advice is to use some 600 grit sandpaper and wedge it under the rotating shoulder and sand the clearance you need for the paint not to rub off when the arm is rotated:




4. I realized that thin light coats was the way to go. This thing took me about a month and a half to complete. So taking my time was key for me along with bagging and tagging every screw, rivet, and pin.

Other than that I am not sure what else I could help with. If anyone has any questions feel free to PM or post them here and I would be more than willing to try to help. Good luck!

 

So far I took out all the screws in his shoulders as well as the wheel well areas on the legs, haven't gotten to his crotch or legs yet so not much to share other than I hate pins. If I have some time to paint this weekend, I'll try to get on some.



Mostly in pieces.

Yeah, not quite sure how to make that happen at this point. The pins that hold the torso/hood together are making it difficult to separate it and I'm kind of stumped there. Frustratingly so. I have so many cool color ideas for this, but these pins are making it incredible difficult to pop them out.

Will do, I'll probably put some paint on the pieces I've got ready for paint, shoulders, wheel well, spoilers.

As far as pins go, could someone with better pin removal knowledge help me, I'm looking for the larger gnarled end to push from, right? Keep trying to get the pin that holds his neck and it hasn't moved much. Because of the angle, I'm worried about breaking the plastic if I hit it too hard.

Figured it out!   The pins holding the hood onto the underside are actually connected to the inside of the hood so all you need to do once you get the screws out is use a small screwdriver to pry them apart. Once you do that you just have a little pulling to do to pull the pins/torso/hood section off, once you do that you remove the black grill section which also has the silver for the lights, once that is off the lights pop right out.

The alligator clips I got at my local hobby shop as well as the pegs that I cut down for each clip. I'm sure you could find them at any hardware or hobby shop.

I'm using sprays, Tamiya sprays to be specific.

Here, I've laid down some base coats:

 

Here is what I did to take MP-12 apart. Do so at your own risk. Hopefully some of these pictures will help you with yours:

 

And some more.................

Nice! Wish I would have seen this post before I started! LOL! I used a plastic spudger used to take cell phones apart. Worked really well.

Any advice on removing the paint from the windows? I have heard alcohol can mess up clear plastic?

It's the easiest part. Just one screw holds it on to the back of the figure. Fyi though, the ko window hinges are notorious for being cracked from when the pins where installed. Mine where cracked. I little super glue fixed it though.

It will be tough to preserve the original paint but not impossible. Buy a cell phone spudger like the one in the pic (blue plastic). Pull down on the front and seperate the two pieces. stick the spudger in the gap and slide it towards the pin. Yes, thise will take some of the paint off. Once you have it slightly apart use a screwdriver and carefully pry both sides evenly apart.

Use a drill bit or punch pin slightly smaller than the smallest pin on the head. While looking striaght at the face push the pin from the left side. It is a pain cause its hard to hold the head and punch the pin at the same time. Good luck!

 

So i read several hobby threads that stated 91% to 99% would or could only cause slight hazing on clear plastics. WRONG! I put the top in a bowl of 91% alcohol for roughly 45 seconds and started brushing with a soft toothbrush. The paint was literally running off on its own, but then both doors just fell off. Yup, fell off. I rinsed the parts and saw the insane hazing left behind. So be warned.

Lesson learned the hard way. Not sure what I am going to use the next time around. Sanding would leave all the old over spray. Oh well, I have half a month to think about it now that I had to order a replacement from China.

I'm sorry that happened to you. Happened to me years ago with Chug Red Alert I wanted to paint in to Sideswipe, one of my first TF customs too, but I'd come from customizing WWE and Wrestling figures, never used rubbing alcohol, always used Acetone for cleaning paint on those Toybiz/Jakks/Mattel figures, but that stuff sure as shit eats up Hasbro plastic like a fat kid eats cake! Well I wanted to strip the paint off of his roof section and read people on here mention soaking it in a bowl, it was 90% rubbing alcohol, so figured, ok try that. Well, came back to it about 20 minutes later and what I pulled out of the bowl was a clump of melted plastic.

Is there any way to save the previous roof? Maybe just gluing the moving sections in place?

I was thinking if I could use some type of putty to remake the joints that it could be re-used. I have never used modelers putty, but the tutorial seems pretty straight forward. I wonder how well the putty sticks to plastics? I really would like it to function as the original. I think the hazing could be buffed with tooth pasted then painted over with future. Good luck with the paint on your roof, I am curious to see how yours turns out. Hopefully it is better than my attempt!!!!

 

my progress so far

 

Just insert a small flat screwdriver between his cheeks and earmuffs. The earmuffs bend away from the sides of the face easily. Once the earmuffs are off, the pin just falls out.

Just a quick picture on how to get the head open:

 

I experienced the same problem because I did the same thing. I soaked him in 91% alcohol and when I came back the paint was gone, sure, but the the hinges on the doors and several other spots just crumbled. And yes, the clear plastic hazed like crazy.

What I ended up doing was cleaning out the broken nubs that remained with my dremel with a sand paper wheel on it. Then I retooled each broken spot to except new hinges. I stole new hinges off of a junker ROTF Swerve (Sideswipe Repaint), trimmed them down, and super glued them in place. It was fairly easy to get them back into the right locations as I have another Lambo to compare against. I used Loctite Liquid Super Glue, which I've found to be far superior to crazy glue. The new pieces are on solid and I feel confidant that they'll hold after reassembly.

 

Crazy how fragile the window plastic is! I got a few drops of rubbing alcohol on the underside of the roof and those couple of drops were enough to make the rings holding the pin brittle enough to snap on one side of mine. I did however get it pretty clean with just some q-tips and 91% rubbing alcohol. The factory paint on these is funky and I've noticed issues with how some of the parts accept paint. I've got a few spots that for whatever reason will not take paint. Going to do a layer of future before my next coat of paint to see what happens.

Here's a couple of progress pics..


IMG-20130923-02321.jpg by Neekotronus, on Flickr


IMG-20130923-02331.jpg by Neekotronus, on Flickr


IMG-20130923-02334.jpg by Neekotronus, on Flickr

 

Cool fix, I might have to pick up a junker ROTF Swerve! I would rather fix mine if at all possible. Thanks for the pics!!!

Ya, I couldn't believe how easily the thing fell apart. If I can't recover the original using krenger99's method then I think I will try to buff the pain off.

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Not much to look at since mine will be all black and white. It was hard to tell what was what on the gator clips so I took a pic of the hood and upper parts.





Some Pic's of where I am at. Not very good pic's since the black makes it hard to see the details.







Alrighty! Back in the game. Finally got the replacement Roof/windows. Got it taped up last night and ready for paint. I lightly sanded areas that I could get to with 800/1000 grits. Other areas I just left the paint as is and hopefully the red won't come through to badly. After The main area is sprayed I will retape and do the door windows.









Still have a little touch up and to paint the doors, but overall I think it turned out decent.




Well mine is finished up. I posted pics here: http://www.tfw2005.com/boards/radicons-customs/961653-masterpeice-killstreak-mp-12k.html

All I have left is the tail lights. Not a big deal so I decided to post the pic's.

 

Showin' some leg..

Me too! Honestly, the best bit of advice I can give is make sure you clean ALL of the paint off of the parts before you do any painting, base coats included.

Yep, spots were covered by it, but they still show thru the few coats of green I laid down over it. Now I'm sanding and redoing the paint. A good friend suggested that I use a few drops of gorilla glue and paint over those, but I'd like to strip all of the paint down if possible.

Been so busy painting at work that I haven't had much energy to paint at home, but I did do a little paint work on mine today and accidentally found out that the lead spots are also on his feet. Looking forward to seeing what you're planning 'Quad!  

Ok, finally got past the spotting issue of the plastic. I used Plutonium white as a base coat, which was thick enough to cover up the issues, so I'm hoping to finally have Cannaboss completed within the week. Here are some pics of where I'm at.

Looking forward to seeing yours as well! The feet are going to be brush painted but from the movement so far, no scraps or rubs. Light dustings when using a can is key. I don't really have any plans to Transform it when he's done, but the Plutonium paint did a great job of coating the fender area and the tamiya just stuck right to it. Quite the 1-2 punch! Took a pic of the forearm put back together just to see how the colors look and I gotta say I'm really excited to have a Sideswipe in Constructicon colors!  

Thanks for the compliment! I would recommend taking it apart, obviously some have taken theirs apart more than mine(see Autotronprime's pics), I'm still not that comfortable with removing pins which is why mine wasn't completely taken apart.

Ultimately it depends on what you want to paint on the figure. I had a vision for how I wanted mine to look so that's what I'm going for. I did base coats with Plutonium white then used Tamiya Metallic Green, along with their Translucent Purple. Hope that helps!

Pieced Cannaboss together this am, now for touch ups, detailing and sealing:

 

Cleaning this thread for tutorial resourcing.

04/25/14

Basic review needed. Condense to article.

05/01/14