Oh yeah...those malicious heal pins...bains of the kitbashing world...

Also, caveat emptor: the thigh pieces also have small pins in them. But they're easier to take off b/c there's also a screw in there. Take the screw out and.... well I don't *necessarily* recommend this, but I yanked the pieces apart. Fortunately nothing bad happened when I did that. :tflaugh  The pin has a flat head on it, so when you put it back together, you can just squeeze it back in with a pair of needlenose pliers (making sure, of course, that you protect the other side with a cloth or something).

 

As I said you could also just remove the paint from his thighs, but I didn't want to if I didn't have to.

As I said you could also just remove the paint from his thighs, but I didn't want to if I didn't have to.

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I tried removing the red from alert for my brother....BIG mistake.

yikes

yikes

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Yeah the paint thinner didn't really REMOVE the red so much as smear it onto the white areas creating a lovely shade of pink.

 

I repainted it and was able to salvage it....but still....it was worrysome.

I've had scary experiences with paint thinner and plastic. You remove some paint from an area, then ...say, a week later, the plastic just shreds when you touch it. (yes, "shreds")

As far as the thighs go...this is what worked for me, and hopefully it'll help others.

 

Remove the one screw that holds that piece together.  Once the screw is removed, you should be able to split the two sides far enough apart to get a flathead screwdriver in between the two pieces.

 

Once the screwdriver is in...twist like you would if you were actually using the screwdriver.  This should provide the needed stress to split the front and back thigh piece.

 

That's how I did it for my Red alert custom...and it worked perfectly. 

 

As far as paint, I would pop that sucker into a bowl of 80% alcohol.  It should remove the paint without any damage to the pice of plastic.  Thats how I got the stripes off of Wheeljack (with a lot of scrubbing) and the white paint off of Alt. Prowl.  I don't know how BT* alert is set up...maybe it was painted white and then red...and in that case this wouldn't work because you don't want to remove the white paint.

 

Hopefully I don't sound too stupid...

I've had scary experiences with paint thinner and plastic. You remove some paint from an area, then ...say, a week later, the plastic just shreds when you touch it. (yes, "shreds")

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Is that what happened with Decepticharge?

 

I gotta admit you actually made Alt Sunstreaker look good. That red just stood out too much.