How to remove red stains from LEGO pieces?

Comments

• FowlerBricks USAMember Posts: 1,693

  February 2018

  Sharpie can usually be wiped off with a soapy rag and hard scrubbing. I tried to customize some clones awhile back and even Sharpie kept rubbing off.

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• LuLego UKMember Posts: 1,007

  February 2018

  If you colour over sharpie with a whiteboard pen, it’ll lift the ‘permanent’ ink when you wipe it away.
  
  That or it’ll ruin the piece even more...
  
  I think the food colouring will be very hard to tackle, particularly if bleach has been unsuccessful.

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• LeGoMaNiAc02 USAMember Posts: 4

  February 2018 edited February 2018

  LuLego said:

  If you colour over sharpie with a whiteboard pen, it’ll lift the ‘permanent’ ink when you wipe it away.
  
  That or it’ll ruin the piece even more...
  
  I think the food colouring will be very hard to tackle, particularly if bleach has been unsuccessful.

  I ended up trying a combo of baking soda, dishwasher soap and hydrogen peroxide. I let it soak in there for a few hours, and I then scrubbed a little at it, and it seems to have been working, at least for my white beards.

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• Astrobricks Minnesota, USMember Posts: 3,717

  February 2018

  The classic remover for “permanent“ marker like Sharpie is rubbing (isopropyl) alcohol. I had a piece in a used lot recently that someone had written on. I rubbed most of it off with the alcohol, but couldn’t get it all out as some had sunk in too deep. I didn’t notice any harm to the part from the alcohol. It doesn’t have the risk of dissolving the plastic like acetone (nail polish remover).
  
  Now, I cant say what isopropyl alcohol will do to the printing on minifigs. It might very well remove that too.

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• CCC UKMember Posts: 19,302

  February 2018

  Alcohol will remove print. If they are blank figures, use it but it will make the surface feel different, but if old figures this may not be too bad.
  
  The best thing to do is buy new figures!

  

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• Istokg MichiganMember Posts: 2,202

  February 2018

  I used to use alcohol (we call it "rubbing alcohol"... and rubbing works!).  I needed some minifig heads in the pinnacles of a historic building I was making... and rubbing alcohol wiped that smile right off of Timmy's little solid stud head with some repeated rubbing!  :-O

  

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• MrJackson Member Posts: 421

  February 2018

  Unfortunately there's no good way to remove anything. The Expo-on-Sharpie only works on a white board, as the finish is designed to be wipable, and in my experience it really doesn't work very well at all anyway. There's nothing you can wipe a minifigure with that will remove sharpie and paint that won't also take off the printing. Best best is hop on Bricklink and hope the minifigs aren't too expensive. 

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