hey guys, ive had some unsucsessful attemps at stripping plastic models, any suggestions?

-andrew

Yes, i have the quick, cheap, easy and risk free fix for stripping plastic and metal models.

Metho and a soft tooth brush.

Step 1). Fill a small pot or glass with about an inch worth or so of Metho.

Step 2) Place plastic model in the pot/glass with the metho.

Step 3) Cover pot/jar/cup with glad wrap or a lid (so the metho doesn't evaporate)

Step 4) Wait for 20 mins.

Step 5) Gently retrieve mini from the metho jar.

Step 6) Dip an old tooth brush into the metho and lightly clean the pre soaked mini until all the paint is removed (it's really quite effortless you'll find).

You can actually dump as many mini's into the metho as will fit. The metho will get coloured quickly, as the paint thins off the models but it won't dilute too much in potency, so you can reuse a murky pot of metho.

Also, metal minis work better this way as you can scrub them more vigorously without risking any damage (this simply means you can strip them faster). Also, metho evaporates meaning you don't even need to wash the stripped mini prior to repainting it (just make sure it's fully dry of the metho).

Note: Use metho only NOT turps! Turps will 'eat' the plastic and your toothbrush - avoid at all costs. Also, the metho method will only work on acrylic paints. Enamels require something else but i'm assuming all most of use is acrylics anyway (GW paints + others) so this last bit is just a word of caution.

Works absolutely wonderfully, i swear by it. Metho is god.

I recycle damn near all my minis, and I can tell you that plastics are a bit of a bugger to strip.

You see, to remove paint you need to use a solvent. Unfortunately, most of the good (read: effective) solvents attack plastic with the same vigour that they devour paint. As such, this pretty much rules out acetone (my favourite for metals) and turpentine (yuk, but it does work).

If the paint is acrylic, and not too thick, methylated spirits (denatured alcohol, not white spirits, which is like turps) is probably the best. Soak your plastics in a jar of metho for a little while, then attack with a toothbrush. If you want an environmentally friendly option, Simple Green, an "industrial" detergent available from Bunnings is good, although it takes a lot of soaking, and to my mind only delivers mediocre results. Plus, it makes the minis slippery as hell.

If you have to strip undercoat (usually a lot harder to remove than acrylics) or you have painted your minis with enamels (usually Humbrol paints are the culprit here), then your best bet may be to use brake fluid. This is, from my experience, an oily, smelly, somewhat frustrating experience. Also, bear in mind that brake fluid is toxic, and occasionally - depending on the brake fluid used - will eat the plastic. I've had good results with Castrol Ultra-Stop brake fluid, with no damage to plastics, even after a six-month soak.

(I guess I just forgot about the minis, alright! Leave me alone!)

My preference is definitely for methylated spirits or Simple Green. Try metho first, as it's cheaper and generally easier to work with as it won't leave the minis all sudsy. Just use it outside, with good ventillation, otherwise you'll lose your sense of smell for a day or so and get a hell of a headache.

Well, I use Metho mixed with Isocol (isopropyl alcohol) in a 50-50 mix. Works nicely and smells better than just metho. Also, what I WANT to use is Artline whiteboard cleaner works UNREAL but it's a tad expensive and no one around here supplies it. But it is the bees knees or ducks nuts or whatever part of whatever when it comes to cleaning plastics.

[quote]Artline whiteboard cleaner[/quote]

That stuff, IIRC, is usually just isopropyl alcohol with an additive or two. Neat isopropyl should have much the same effect.

Brake fluid.
Just don't leave them in too long , it will dimple the plastic a little but gets the paint off.

Second vote for the Simple Green - concentrate.
Soak for 2 days for lightly undercoated, 3 days for lightly painted, 5-7 days for heavily painted or multi-layered or enamelled.
Doesnt smell as toxic as metho but use gloves anyway.
Recommend a 'Hard' toothbrush.
Paint that doesnt come off after brushing seems to 'chip' off when dry anyway.
Keep your container as Simple Green maintains its potency for months...my current pot is now almost 12 months old and is stripping as I write. Not bad for a $10 investment which I've only used half of.

Cheers
Mark

To get better results with the metho take the sealed container and weigh it down in a bath of hot water to basicly heat the metho up.

If you're patient - files.

Castrol's Responce Dot 4 brake fluid. Strips both metal & plastic, no affect on the quality of plastic after stripping. Leave in for 2-4 hours, then drain fluid back into the container, and scrub with an old toothbrush, pretty much all paint should come off. Just make sure to run the models under hot water & leave to dry after stripping with brake fluid, the residue makes it difficult to glue otherwise. It also weakens superglue, in most cases to the point where the bond will break just with the scrubbing motion of the toothbrush. I don't know about any affects on greenstuff though.

I took a trip to my local Bunnings yesterday and the guy I spoke to claimed that the stores don't stock simple green anymore. Is this guy tellling me porky pies?

I've tried brake fluid and it just doesn't seem to do the job completely. Always leaves little bits of paint in the detail no matter how hard you scrub. Perhaps I should give the metho a go.

This is all in the FAQ. Also, use a toothbrush to clean up the models. It even gets peint out of the little circles of chainmail if you're patient.

[quote=Jimmy]I took a trip to my local Bunnings yesterday and the guy I spoke to claimed that the stores don't stock simple green anymore. Is this guy tellling me porky pies?[/quote]

Yep.

It's in four Bunnings that I know of, all one the south/west side of Brisbane: Archerfield, Oxley, Springwood (both of them), Mt Gravatt.

It's in the cleaning products aisle. If you can't get it at your local Jimmy I can pick one up for you ($8 ) and pass it on through either Mark or Al.

Cheers,

GT

One thing about brake fluid.....make sure you finish cleaning it before you hit it with water. For some reason (probably because brakefluid is made of mineral oils and such) as soon as you hit it with water, the cleaning gets harder. As long as you leave it wet with brakefluid and no water involved, all will be ok. Its still toxic though...and smells really bad....and your wife/girlfriend/casual encounter won't let you -------- umm -------- brush her hair.......without some really heavy duty hand cleaning.......unless they are really....umm....in need of a hairbrushing...lol

hey guys, i tried them out, i found that the best was.... metho .. i left them in there over night, then the paint will just peel off, also, no damage done

The reason that the cleaning get harder when you rinse with water is becaue the brake fluid brakes (pardon the pun :-D ) down when exposed with water.

If that is all i got from wasting my time at trade school then i am happy.

I have found that jiff concertrate is great for striping paint from plastic miniatures. Dunno if you can get it anymore but i have had the same jar for ages and it is still going strong.

Cool. Metho is pretty damned effective in my experience.

If you want to take your stripping to the next level (gah... that sounds like I'm writing for Cosmo ), try pumping a stream of metho through a cheapie airbrush at pressure to simply hose the paint off your minis after they've soaked in metho for a while.

I've found that this technique allows even the most fragile plastic minis to be stripped without difficulty, and without snapping small details due to overenthusiastic toothbrush deployment. It even gets the paint out of crevices in the minis that a toothbrush previously struggled to reach.

(Plus, I found it a strangely fulfilling experience to simply hose the minis perfectly clean, although on reflection that may be due partly to all the alcohol fumes I was doubtless inhaling...)

hmm, thats a good idea, how much would you get for a airbrush?

Well, you don't want to spend heaps, because you'll be using it at a substantially higher pressure than it's designed for. I use a cheapie airbrush that cost me $25, hooked up to a 21-litre capacity compressor ($100 from bunnings) dialled up to around 50 psi. Obviously, I only do this outside...

Note here that you definitely need a proper compresor to do this - a desktop hobby model or a little $20 compressor for blowing up tyres won't work. Likewise, due to the large gas usage, "canned air" - actually compressed gas - is not feasible due to cost and insufficient pressure.

Basically, it's something you can try if you have access to a compressor already. Unless you're a serious mini-recycler, it's not worth it just to clean a few parts .

Actually....the very best I have used is gumwash....but only works on metal models as you get an awesome nurgle routine with this one if you use it on plasticl...lol

highly toxic and will send you to the moon on a pink balloon if you don't use it in an open area....

non - acetone nail polish remover is the one i use the most

What the devil is "gumwash"? I've not heard of it.

Cleaning thinners, used by painters to clean up their brushes and stuff after a hard days chroming.... :-)

Is it turps based? Or is it some other solvent?

MEK is another that'll strip metal like new in seconds.
It's a commercial solvent, Methyl Ethyl Ketone iirc.
Used it in a previous life to strip baked on toner from the metal bearings and bushes on photocopier toner units.
I would not recommend this...dont even really know why I'm posting it.

Crikey... I know MEK. Vile, vile stuff. You'd be better stripping your minis with petrol, insofar as toxicity and overall nastiness is concerned.

What about stripping vechiles, anyone got any good ways to do that?

Well, I generally use the soak-in-metho-overnight-then-hose-with-metho-from-airbrush method, as detailed above. I've used it with great success on rhinos, leman russes and sentinels. I found it particularly good on the assembled sentinels, which were just too fiddly and fragile to attack with my usual poke-with-a-toothbrush-and-hope-for-the-best method.

If you need to strip many vehicles, it is probably the easiest method available. However, you will probably go through an obscene amount of metho in the process, so take that into account. Plus it really has to be done outside, which is a bit of a bugger.

Lachy, I'm not sure what it is. Pretty sure it's not turps based, it's considered one of the strongest cleaning solvents available for painters by the guys at the paintplace here.

I've used gumwash to clean the nozzles of my Wattyl Matt Estapol varnish, coz it doesn't kill the nozzle like turps does. As long as when you've cleaned the lid you leave it out to dry afterwards it seems pretty good. Turps makes the spray spout soften or something so when you use the spray it goes flying across the room somewhere. Sucks real bad when that happens coz it won't go back in! Gotta find a new spray nozzle then. And it paints everything in a nice thick layer of varnish if you don't get it back in....spatter style... :-(

Vehicles? Man, I don't even wanna think about that, I stripped an attack bike with metho, and that really sucked. I think the best method for stripping vehicles would be the metho-spraygun trick. Sounds sweet, just gotta get an old airbrush an mosey on over to my dads place to use the compressor I bought him for Christmas.... ;-)

I reckon if you do the metho job into a large receptacle you should be able to recover some of the metho.....

Although.....

Hmmmm...half my vehicles are cardboard rhinos and drop pods... :-o

lachy, ill gte myself an airbrush for my b'day;). we've already got a big heavy duty air compressor:D:D

[quote]I reckon if you do the metho job into a large receptacle you should be able to recover some of the metho..... [/quote]

I found that I lost a fair bit due to evaporation - it's definitely not something to do on a hot day.

[quote]lachy, ill gte myself an airbrush for my b'day;). we've already got a big heavy duty air compressor[/quote]

Don't use an expensive airbrush to do this - the metho and the pressure is *ahem* not good for it. You'll probably have to get a special coupling to hook the airbrush up to the compressor - which Bunnings or any large arts store, or possibly even good model shops, should have. Also, make sure you can regulate your pressure. About 50psi is ideal, in my experience.

Yar, i figured evap would be a problem. At least you can buy it in 1, 2 and 4 litre containers! And more if you find the right shop....heheheh

And then you could always switch to using straight Jack Daniels.....lol.....and I can hear the gasps of horror already!!!

[quote]Yar, i figured evap would be a problem.[/quote]

Not as bad as with acetone - the first time I used it, it wa a hot day and I poured some into an open glass container over some marines. I came back a couple of hours later, and the jar was half-empty, leaving me muttering things like "What's happened to my Acetone? Where's it all gone?" in a state of bewilderment and confusion.

Even if I put a lid on the jar I've found that it still evaporates, albeit more slowly.

I soaked 3 plastic marines in metho for half an hour this morning, and when I lifted them out my fingers left prints in the plastic, and the tooth brush scrubbed their faces off (as well as a heap of other detail). It's definitely metho (new bottle), and I wasn't overly aggressive with the brush, so is a half hour too long? Where did I go wrong? My sons are happy, they've inherited 3 practice dummies.

owch, You'd be shatted. Maybe its dodgy metho. try not soacking them, maybe just dip the brush in and then go over the models lightly untill the paint comes off

I've never seen that happen with metho before....what type of models did you try? And what brand of metho?

Metho eating plastic... I've heard of it, but never seen it happen myself, and I've used metho on most plastics. I've heard that some additives might alter the solvent properties, such as the presence of isopropyl alcohols, or traces of certain ketones or ethers, however I'd be really surprised if they were present in great enough quantities to effect the plastic in so short a timeframe.



You did use "methylated spirits", and not "white spirits", right?

The brand is Diggers, and it says Metho on the label, as well as methylated spirits underneath. The models are plastic space marines from the 3rd ed boxed set. I bought and painted them around three years ago. I have since tried dunking them straight in then out, and scrubbing with a wet brush, which seems to work, but if there are any troublesome bits of paint that I have to keep working on then the plastic starts to get marked by my fingers. I don't know if I have a bad batch, but I think I'll just paint over my tanks, rather than take the risk. Either that, or I'll buy some different metho. This bottle seems a little too spicy for my taste.

Wow... Remind me never to use Diggers brand metho. I'm thinking that it must be denaturing agent that they use that is nuking your plastics.

I use Recochem metho, with no problems yet...