If I had started to write this story after my first use of this product, I may have saved a lot of time testing. I was totally stunned by its capabilities.
CSC is a clear purple liquid. It appears harmless enough, but don't be fooled. Even short physical contact with it will create a slime on you that is partially made up of your former top layer of skin! Never use this stuff without protecting yourself. It is a very strong degreaser and will breakdown your body oils like a stick of butter in a microwave. Only lots of cold running water will neutralize this effect. Better to wear gloves, then find out personally. It possesses a pleasant enough aroma in a ventilated area, but a strong chemical smell can really sneak up on you if you use it in tight spots.
I first purchased CSC for stripping clear-coated chrome from plastic wheels. When my trusty Formula 409 first failed to de-chrome an entire set of wheels, I was forced to look somewhere else. Easy Off worked well but I had some trouble getting the base coat, to which the chrome attaches to, to release from the plastic. Super Clean was new, and touted as a super tough cleaner so it got a shot. It stripped the wheels bare in under 15 minutes. It was the first of many pleasant surprises.
Much later, that I learned of its ability to strip paint. And boy, what I learned.
Castrol Super Clean is the stuff dreams are made of. Weeks after the initial experience I'm still a little giddy about the whole thing. Imagine having a clean, and I mean clean, slate from which to start. It is low maintenance, easy to use, cheap and extremely effective. The preferred method involves submerging the entire body into a plastic container filled with CSC for a couple hours or as needed. No sloppy brushing or breath-taking sprays. No scrubbing, most of the time. No special rituals at all, except proper safety precautions for exposed skin and eyes.
The submersion process requires a suitable vessel in which both parts and CSC can reside comfortably. The local 99¢ store had many useful options. A metal container should NOT be considered an option. Plastic or glass is best. CSC can make surfaces very slippery so I strongly suggest you stick with plastic. A quart sized container worked perfectly in my case.
Depending on the type of finish, the loosened paint usually falls away from the body in sheets. According to Castrol's literature, Super Clean works in two ways. It dissolves the grease and reduces its ability to adhere to a surface. This is what struck me about my initial encounter with it as a stripper. The paint simply slid right off the surface of the kit in nearly one piece. It dissolved the sandable primer underneath the top coat which remained mostly intact. This may also account for the smooth finish appearance of the plastic.
It's a stunning sight. At first I was so unbelieving that I tried another. Again total success! DANG! I tested my own nerve when I dropped a rare, MPC Color Me Gone '67 Charger into a fresh vat of CSC. This car wasn't primed so I didn't know how it would turn out. Three hours later I pulled a bright white Charger from the dingy liquid. WHOA! At that moment modeling seemed to become fun again, like it hadn't been for a long time. Instead of looking at these cars as mistakes piling up in the "someday pile, I saw a bright light at the end of modeling tunnel. "Go into the liiiiiiight...." p> A Lindberg Little Red Wagon body was place, half submerged in CSC and left to sit overnight. The A100 had many (too many) coats of Krylon Yellow and Plasti-Kote Schoolbus Yellow over a Krylon sandable primer. Detail was beginning to fade by the 100th coat and the color was still spotty.
The initial coat of the Krylon primer crazed the surface of the kit and the body was stripped one time previously, with Easy-Off. Even so, all the paint came off in the first soak.
The glass of the CMG Charger was also painted with the Metalflake green (?). It was time to see if there was any hope of making it useful again. In it went. After forcing myself away for a couple hours. I checked on it to find a perfectly clear, and virtually new windshield again. WOW!
Chrome plating removal is as good as it gets. While not as aggressive as SAK, CSC strips even the clear-coated chrome quickly and effectively. Even the gooey lacquer undercoating is loosened enough to brush free under warm running water.
Because this stuff works so well, I will now consider the purchase of builtups for possible projects in the future.
Bonuses:
Easy to use
No staining
Cheap
Biodegradable - Easy disposal
Can be used over and over
Bummers:
Submersion application restricts use to smaller kits
HARSH - watch this stuff. It eats skin.
Invasive - easily seeps into hidden areas
Any remaining unstripped paint can hold CSC and ruin the next paint job