The Lamp Room

Ok, so just saved a Superslim batten which I'm going to restore, however, some idiot has slapped gloss paint all over it, including the lampholders. Anyone got any suggestions for getting the paint off the lampholders without damaging the plastic? Cheers.

If its emulsion, leave it in warm to hot water for an hour or so, it will then wipe off easily, it kind of absorbs the water.

Sadly it's gloss or I'd just have soaked it off. Not had to remove gloss from plastic lampholders before and don't want to use anything that will damage them....

you could use fine grade wire wool. I found lickily on netaline arms which ALWAYS seemed to get painted with white paint luckily "chips" off, Just go slowly slow gentle gentle with the wire wool, will take a long time but will get there in the end. Trying to cut corners using a solvent may melt the plastic - I found to my peryl with a perminatly deformed, half melted netaline ceilling cover after leaving it in meths for a week.

On this occasion, boiling water got the gloss off. I's a hard, thermosetting plastic (urea based I think) so won't melt at that temperature. Annoyingly, having got the paint off I can see why they were painted in the first place - they're really badly discoloured - must have been in a kitchen or even somewhere someone used to smoke non-stop as they're a horrid, stained brown. Now to try and work out how to clean them back to the nice grey they should be!

sure i read somewhere that soaking them with a dishwasher tablet restores them back to original colour..

That's exactly what I did a couple of days back. Look good as new now!

I can confirm this works well, although I just dismantled the holder and put the parts in the dishwasher minus the contacts.
If you want to clean up lampholders quick, autosol polish works amazingly.

Yes, I took mine apart too and just soaked the plastic parts in a tub with a dishwasher tablet. Excellent results!

Used this a few more times on various lampholders and in all cases they've come up like new - a trick worth remembering if you have a filthy fitting to restore!