I guess about a month or so ago, I won this figure off eBay. Some of you may remember these auctions as the seller also had some bootlegs, possible Uzays & customs he was also selling. These are the pictures from the auction:









Once the figure arrived, my suspicions were confirmed, it was a Meccano Luke! So after about 4 hours of cleaning & numerous Magic erasers, I have undone the "custom" paint job & am now left with this:







I still have some work to do on the belt buckle as it still looks silver to me. But otherwise I can't complain
Hope you enjoy the pics of my "labor of love"

Pat

Well spotted Pat, & great restoration job!   

Nice work!  
How did you manage to get the brown paint off without removing the original paint below? And sharp eye, by the way. Spotting the Meccano beneath that paint job was not obvious...

bedheadjulian wrote:

Nice work!  
How did you manage to get the brown paint off without removing the original paint below? And sharp eye, by the way. Spotting the Meccano beneath that paint job was not obvious...

Well done, and yes please share your tips!

Great find and great job mate  

What are the magic erasers  :scratch:

Jesus Pat, that seems like a lifetime ago when you got him! You been working on him that long! Great job my friend, gotta admit though, those custom eyes did look very good!

Great find mate and a even greater price if I remember rightly   

Nico wrote:

Great find and great job mate  

What are the magic erasers  :scratch:

It is a household cleaning product here in North America (at least in Canada & the US).  But you might want to wear gloves while using it, because I've heard they may be a little bit toxic.

The secret behind these types of erasers is a material commonly called melamine foam. With just a little water, melamine foam can dig in and destroy stains that other products can't touch.



Hope this helps. 

Many thanks for the kind words fellas

My cleaning process was hit & miss. I started with just soap & water, which did absolutely nothing. Maybe it loosened the paint, I don't even know. I then tried using vinegar on a paper towel, that also didn't do much. From there I started with the magic eraser. I was hesitant at first, but decided to throw caution to the wind at this point & I literally went to town on it. It was a very slow process as I was trying very hard to not remove the original paint. The magic eraser worked really well but it didn't get the paint out of the grooves in the legs & it didn't really do much for the belt buckle. To get the paint out of the grooves of the legs I actually used a tack to scrape it out. This took literally hours to do but I was very pleased with the results as it resulted in zero loss of original paint. From there I moved to the belt buckle. The buckle was definitely a different paint from the legs, I suspect it was done with a paint pen. After everything I tried failed I went back to using a tack & gently scrapping it off. The eyes were the last thing to go. That was quite a challenge! But with the magic eraser & a lot of patience I was able to get that paint off as well. In the end the magic eraser was literally the only thing that worked. Here is a link to magic erasers, I can't say enough good things about them.

http://www.mrclean.com/en_US/magic-eraser.do

Awesome job pat! Magic erasers are magical . I use them for a lot of different things! Never let's me down.

@Pat, I may have a tip for that silver. I'll pm you tomorrow buddy

General Kahn wrote:

Great find mate and a even greater price if I remember rightly   

$15 shipped & $4 for a pack of magic erasers   

walkie wrote:

@Pat, I may have a tip for that silver. I'll pm you tomorrow buddy

awesome! I look forward to it

Great spot, Pat!

And what a a persistence to restore that Meccano Luke.   

Now, I ended up buying this Hammer Boobs figure from the same seller. But I realise now she is a rare PBP Hammer Head.

Can I send her to you for restoration?  
Some areas might need a bit more Magic Eraser.  

OMG what is that thing? LOL it has boobs!?!?

RetroRewindToys wrote:

OMG what is that thing? LOL it has boobs!?!?

It looks that way!  

Some serious competition for the Tonnika Sisters in the Cantina Bar.   

Fantastic cleanup job on that Luke Pat   

I use the magical erasers too occasionally and they do work really well   


Love that Hammerhead custom Marco   

That makes me want to do some custom figures with boobs myself now   

Commander Clint wrote:

Nico wrote:

Great find and great job mate  

What are the magic erasers  :scratch:

It is a household cleaning product here in North America (at least in Canada & the US).  But you might want to wear gloves while using it, because I've heard they may be a little bit toxic.

The secret behind these types of erasers is a material commonly called melamine foam. With just a little water, melamine foam can dig in and destroy stains that other products can't touch.



Hope this helps. 

Thanks for the info Clint