WWWAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

[mforjan]

OK, all the regulars here know I am a Victorian Sash pin maven, I LOVE them! So, I won a lot last week that had a sash pin in it that looked strange to me in the photos, but I bid on it anyway (keeping the wonky look in mind) and won. Got the lot and there is this poor, sweet, brass sash pin covered in a layer of silver spray paint!

At least they had the good sense to remove the stone first!

But what I want to ask is what is the best way to remove the paint? Should I start by soaking in water? Or should I go right to paint stripper? It looks fairly recently done since the painted surface is in good shape - lucky me 

Here is a photo of my poor, painted sash pin (yes, they very nicely painted the back also!)

[flipping_treasures]

Think I would work with the back and see what strips the paint the best.  But work small.  Is there any clue as to what metal and finish is under the silver paint?  My thought would be that there was a reason someone went to the trouble of painting this piece.  There could be some real damage under all that paint.  Good luck.

[old.crows.nest]

OMGosh, they probably have no idea what they did either ...

[1940fc]

Awwww how awful that someone did that.  But..how easy is it to remove spray paint?? 

[clearsphere]

Looks very Xena! Definitely a bummer, would a light touch with a dremel buffer work?

[calis_stuff]

Hopefully there isn't any original enamrl work under that paint. Sometimes you can peel newer paint off, if it's latex enamel. I would attempt to remove it by carefully trying to peel some away on the back.

If it seems hopeless then I would try the using a bit of paint thinner and remove a small area at a time.

At some point you'll know when you have nothing to lose and will just have to go at it and hope for the best.

If it were mine, I'd remove the stone and do all of the above.

Good luck !

[gauntlettgems]

I don't have any ideas but I would be wary of using a stripper. I would love to see it once you've got it cleaned up!

[vernon1959]

poor sad little piece.

I googled stripping spray paint and found a couple of non-chemical soultions:

Of course you will want to remove the stone first

• Removing paint with baking soda An effective and fast way to remove paint from small metal hardware is to boil it in water and baking soda. Take a pot that you can dispose of and fill it halfway with water. Pour enough baking soda into the pot with to fully cover the bottom of the pot. Place your hardware in the pot and allow it to simmer in the water for half an hour. When you pull the metal out of the pot, you will see that peeling the paint off is effortless. If you don't want to expose yourself to possibly hazardous chemicals, removing paint with baking soda is a great method 
• Removing paint with heat Another method for efficiently removing paint from metal is using heat. Simply soak small metal pieces in a crock pot full of soapy water. Turn on the crock pot, and let the heat and soap get to work on the paint. Gently scrub the loosened paint off with a nylon brush
• Pauline

[rain777blue]

WoW that is ashame, I would do as others suggested and remove the stone, and go at it with the baking soads and maybe add a little vinagar to the boiling water as well. That seems to work on the bottom of my copper pots 🙂

[figtree3]

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@calicos_vintage_jewelry wrote:

Hopefully there isn't any original enamrl work under that paint. Sometimes you can peel newer paint off, if it's latex enamel. I would attempt to remove it by carefully trying to peel some away on the back.

If it seems hopeless then I would try the using a bit of paint thinner and remove a small area at a time.

At some point you'll know when you have nothing to lose and will just have to go at it and hope for the best.

If it were mine, I'd remove the stone and do all of the above.

Good luck !

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I like Calico's idea... go cautiously at first in case there is something underneath that you would not want to remove.

Fig

[sweet2395helen]

Marie,

So nice, and I love those little Greek-key looking things at the top and bottom.

Good luck with it, and would you please SHOW this to us again once you've got the paint off?  (Can't wait to see it.)

[evelyb30]

The original finish was probably damaged, and someone wanted to "fix" the pin so they could wear it. Poor baby. Let us know what happens.

[mforjan]

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I will start slow and try different things on the back. This week I should have time to try, I am hopefull and will report back 

[mforjan]

Well, so far warm soapy water and my old standby, ketchup, did nothing. Baking soda is next, I just have to stop at the swap shop at our transfer station to see if I can find a small pot to use. I have some lacquer thinner, I may try a bit on a Q-tip on the back just to see what happens.

Keep you posted 🙂

[cleio]

oh wow...good luck with that!