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Finally I'm getting back to the Hotel!
With great weather for a day, I was able to get around to painting the Grand Hotel.
First: Steps to removing stickers and gunk from Mattel Plastics
- Give your house, furniture, or vehicle a good wash. I use a kitchen spray cleaner with a bit of bleach--(Some of the items I get are really disgusting, but Cheap!) and a complete rinse. Let dry.
- Work on the stickers you wish to remove. (Almost all of the ones in this Hotel were crooked and faded. This was a PINK house, faded to icky apricot.) Gently score the stickers with a plastic spoon or knife edge. You want to cut through the surface of the sticker but not scratch the plastic walls. Pull at any stickers that are lose---they won't all come off, but usually some of the shiny top will rip off.
- I use Goo-Gone in the bottle. The Spray, I only use outside. Carefully Saturate the stickers, move on to the next one, etc. Let sit and then begin to use a plastic scraper and remove as much as possible. Depending on how old your item is---the harder it may be to remove. Those exposed to lots of sunlight are easiest to remove as the glue has dried up.
- Repeat application of Goo-gone if necessary. Sometimes, three applications are necessary.When all the residual gunk has been removed, (You may have to use nail polish remover to get the gunk off and get a cleaner surface.) --
- Wear gloves and saturate some paper towel and wash down all areas with Alcohol where you have used the remover oil. (You may have to use nail polish remover to get the gunk off and get a cleaner surface.) I wash the entire surface with clean paper towels and alcohol. This gives a good clean surface for paint.
- Do this cleaning twice to make sure you don't miss any. You will get crazing, and snakeskin texture, and sometimes paint will not stick at all if it isn't oil free.
- Masking: Once clean, mask all the areas you don't want painted with removable painter's tape. You can use sheet paper to mask off large areas, just make sure you seal the edges tightly.
- You can see I have masked off the windows with green tape, and the side entrance with paper. I did the windows on both sides, as I wanted to retain the blue windows. My windows were quite brittle, so taking them off wasn't an option.
You can see the horrid fading of the Mattel plastic. This toy was probably outside or on a sun porch!
I got so excited to start spraying I forgot to photo the inside at the masking stage. Here you can see where I have starting to mask the big areas off over the finished white.
Painting
Many spray paints are now designed to spray on plastic. It's amazing how well it sticks, and I love all the colors available. I chose white for all the inside, and a darker gray for the outside. I will be touch up painting by brush lots of details and and textures on this building. Remember to spray outdoors or in a ventilated area (like a porch).
I prefer Satin finishes, which are more durable than flat finishes.
You certainly can brush on with a paint of your choice and then seal it. Lots of work that way.
- Spray smoothly and quickly trying not to overlap. This is hard without all the little crevices. I made about 4 quick passes across the whole interior.
- In the next photo, you can see the phone and cord covered.(Mask all electrical areas) Luckily the paint dries within 30 minutes or so. A breezy day that is dry and warm is even better.
Preparing for the exterior side spraying.
- I reversed the large entrance papers and tape to the inside now! The house is still glowing peachy. I'm hoping the Gray will block that out!
- I didn't paint the floors, but I did the underside ceilings. Remember I have new wood floors for both levels. The Pillars were tricky, and had lots of crevices. Since I will be using all angles for photos and through the windows, I really tried to cover everything.
- It two cans completely to do the inside + touch ups.
Masking the insides!
- Now that you have your inside basically painted. Allow to dry and then use the painters tape to very tightly mask off any areas where the darker exterior will seep through.
- I closed up the house after this and used a blocking paper to keep from going into the hole in the middles at the top.
The grills on top are very detailed so I tightly masked them, underneath.
Here are some missing parts? I don't know if I removed it or not...I'll come up with something! The exterior windows have lots of detail...I masked them off in long pieces, rubbed hard and then trimmed them all with an exact knife. There will be lots of touch up painting when the masking is peeled off.
After the first coat, you can see a bit o peach showing through. This was evened out with a second coat. The outside took about 2/3 can. Darker colors have more opacifiers in them.
Yellows, whites, some reds and oranges will need many coats.
Curing!
When I finished, I moved the whole thing into the garage for two days! Can't wait to remove all the tape and papers, and see what I have left to do! Let the paint stand as long as you can before you do other treatments.
Next Post: Details and touch ups...I have no major plan, I will try and do some dry brushing with craft paints to see if I can bring up all the details!
Listed here in order are links for all the Hotel posts:
Demolition: Men at Work
Grand Hotel:Lara surveys Progress
Tutorial:Grand Hotel Demolition
Grand Hotel: Grand Hotel Demolition Secret
Grand Hotel:Lara surveys Progress
Tutorial:Grand Hotel Demolition
Grand Hotel: Grand Hotel Demolition Secret
Thank you for visiting, I will try and respond to every question and comment.
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Thank you for your cooperation, Sandi
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