Nail Polish Remover Got On My Pen

[xTwiinKy]

I was fixing up an Eversharp Skyline using shellac to attach the gold filled shell to the rubber/plastic inner thingy. That went great but I had gotten some shellac residue that I needed to clean off. I read online to use nail polish remover.

 

It came off super easily and everything was great. But on the cap ... the black plastic part... one pass with my cotton swab touched it and its slightly discouraged. It looks lighter... kind of like super glue residue but not with any solid.

 

I rinsed it, wiped it... microfiber rubbed it and nothing has worked.

 

What could it be ? How could I fix it? Its purely cosmetic but the gold cap is kind of the center of attention for the pen and I'd prefer not to have it when showing off haha.

Edited December 8, 2013 by xTwiinKy

[The Blue Knight]

The Ethanol in the solvent probably dissolved some of the paint. I doubt there is much you can do about it. I used get annoyed when little things like that happened to my pens however I know take the view that a mint condition pen is a boring pen and doesn't have anything different about it but a well used pen tells a story and is not a inanimate object like it was when you first got it.

[viclip]

Nail polish remover typically contains acetone. Acetone does a great job of attacking many plastics. All you can do is attempt to polish out the damaged area to match the remainder of the cap. You may need to start with a more aggressive polish than what you tried already, such as Simichrome Metal Polish (available from Richard Binder's site).

 

FYI shellac can be removed with ammonia solution. While methanol/ethanol also dissolve shellac, the alcohol family can be very unkind to pens including lacquer coatings, so I prefer to use ammonia for clean up purposes instead.

[c4bb0ose]

Yeh nail polish remover hates and I mean hates plastics, I did a test with some Warhammer figurines to see if a quick bath could be used as a nice paint stripper, it stripped the paint sure, but all of the models details went with it. In the end It kind of looked like gloopy grey mess that looked like the thing from the early horror movie.

[Newjelan]

Nail Polish remover is great for removing Bay State Blue from your hands, so I'm sure it's capable of destroying pens.

[OcalaFlGuy]

xTwiinKy, I performed an experiment and have an answer for you, more precisely, a verification of an already given answer.

 

As viclip suggested, the Simichrome polish will get you back to shiny.

 

I got an older Esterbrook cap in black and used some fingernail polish remover on it to purposely "craze" it. (I think what you are mainly doing with it is removing the gloss from the surface.) I won't say it was White but the gloss was definitely removed from that area.

 

It took two tries but Simichrome and a piece of old Flannel shirt made it all shiny again. (The Flannel is a polishing "secret weapon". It is all I use to hand polish with.)

 

A couple caveats;

 

Get ALL of the Simichrome off, once it dries for awhile it's much harder to remove. A sure sign of an amateurish polish job is remnants of the polish compound in the nooks and crannies of what was polished.

 

It may help to make yourself a little polish tool if you need to get into a close area. I use the wood coffee stirrers that are about 1/4" wide and maybe 1/8" thick. Put a layer of the Flannel over that and use it to get into tight areas. Use a pocket knife to whittle the end of the stirrer to any desired shape or size needed if necessary.

 

Even though I didn't use Skyline material, I think they are similar enough, especially the color for this test.

 

Bruce in Ocala, Fl