Cleaning paint off your machines

What type of solvent would be best and less harmful for you and the machine to remove dried latex paint on the frame and engine and plastic parts ?? Mineral spirits or paint thinner?? just curious

Use an air chisel to chip the chunks, you would be forever trying to wipe of build up paint, even with the hottest solvent. When you get the chunks off then you can wipe the small stuff off, we use MEK for CR paint, and it works well, I would assume it would work just as good for latex.

Im using laquer thinner and its workin , takin awhile to soften it up but if I keep goin thru clean towels it works Im jus a clean freak sometimes, I feel that how clean someone keeps their tools is a sign of how neat their work is on the jobsite.. Maybe this will piss off a few of you slobs but if I was a customer and I saw a guy walkin up to my biz and his machine looked like bobo the clown pured magik water colors all over it Id be thinkin how much did he spill on the parkin lot too!?! Take it easy..

goof off will take off latex. It will also eat your hoses. It will take off the dried paint on the outside.

Not using goof off, ive tried that stuff before and its always destroyed whatever i used it on so its a POS to me.. I use thinner and its workin good i guess..

instead of removing the old paint just finish painting the machine the same color that is in it. sure is a lot easer then cleaning it and once it is say yellow it is easy to touch up and you can see which machine to use at a glance.

I use a hot water pressure washer to remove paint from my machines. You have to be careful of the sensors and wiring on the newer 3900's. Also the newer 3900's have a powder coated frame instead of the bulletproof zinc coating they were using.

I saw a 5900 machine the other day on eBay that was 3 yrs old for sale and it was spotless. I emailed owner and asked how he kept it so clean, and he said he had sprayed armoral all over it since new and periodically powerwashing it than spraying it again with armoral.

Great idea Cancunal. I was told (but have not tried yet) to use easy off oven cleaner, let it sit and then hot pressure wash it off. Has anyone hear of this?

Easy off oven cleaner says on the can "Warning do not get on painted surfaces." (I like the armoral idea) Armoral is banned in my shop for a month before I do any equipment or car painting because nothing will ruin a paint job faster then silicone

baby oil or wd40 will do the same thing shoot it all over every few weeks after wiping down your machine Mike In-Line

I use oven cleaner to strip gun stocks before refinishing - works great and should work on paint but if I have a machine that needs more than power washing, I use Bix or some other "regular" paint remover, let it sit a long while maybe even apply a couple of coats before power washing again. This lets me remove layers of paint and be systematic about it without removing paint that should stay. I suppose that Dietrich 606 would sork well but it is much too industrial and might remove too much paint. Usually after power washing our machines, I spray them liberally with WD-40 and that helps them clean up better than nothing at all.

ever wonder why they don't make the machines white, yellow and blue with a little red mixed in?

when I worked at a power company in another life we sprayed machines with something like liquid vaseline.. It worked great but that stuff cost a lot. Impossible to keep a line striper clean all the time.

we use wd 40 almost every time we use it we will spray it then when we get around to cleaning it we just spray it down real good let it sit for a little and wash it with warm water and a hard brush also soy bean oil works good

The only way I'd consider cleaning a machine would be to have someone come in after hours. Cleaning striping machines "doesn't wash" compared to the time lost when the machine could be putting paint on the ground.

Amen Ken, Why spend so much time cleaning the outside of the machines. I have a enough time in a day to put the paint on the ground making me money. Why spend the extra money to keep a pretty looking striping machine. My new machine this year has 1800 gallons through it, and to tell you the truth. It looks it. That's fine with me, after dumping over 360 pails of paint in a machine it will get dirty. Worry about the paint on the ground and not the paint on your machine. Jim

I USE RB AND I MFOUND IF U SPRAY WD-40 ON THE FRAME U WILL ALOT LESS TIME CLEANING MORE TIME WORKING ON GETTING JOBS

Quote Quote from: jpanz on January 23, 2006, 08:00:44 AM Worry about the paint on the ground and not the paint on your machine. Jim Great quote Jim. If you don't mind, I'd like to use that one at the next EXPO!!!!

don't do what I got me lads to do, scrap off the paint with thinners etc! It took the protective coating off and rust is setting in all over the place. !!! I really regret it now, I have to sand down the rust, prime and respray the frames.