Hello,
OK, bear with me for a minute: After throwing everything short of Nuclear Fission (I did try nuclear fusion) into the green paint, it still stood defiant. And I mean everything from lacquer thinner to acid to peroxide to acetone, ammonia and every chemical known to my house.
IPA was the only thing that had a little effect. But after more than an hour I was able to do an area much smaller than a dime.
So I was defeated.
Then I started looking for replacement leatherette. After all, there is a whole industry on that. Right? Well, with the pandemic it seems they are either gone or shutdown. I tried to contact every supplier of camera leatherette I could find but did not get any response back. One web site said "Sorry, due to the pandemic we are not shipping out of Japan". Even on eBay, the closest I got was generic material to cut to size. I'm looking into that for another color but that's another story. But that is also overseas and it warned shipping can take forever.
Then I asked my wife if she had any black or blue purse, leather or vinyl, she was throwing away.
You had to see her face! It was worth a million!
That was another dead end (but funny).
It seems I'm defeated.... twice now!
So I went back to the workbench and had a serious conversation with this guy: There is nothing to loose. Sorry but full scale aggression it is.
I started pouring 91% IPA and went to town with a brass wire brush. Guess what! It started to slowly work! It took hours over a few days to get to this stage. I lost count of how many times I asked myself "Why?"
Now we are at a stage where I will do a few more passes with soaked paper towels and will then try black shoe polish. I think the original can be saved after all!
And with so much IP alcohol, I guarantee it is COVID free
Thanks,