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Anyone got a good tip for cleaning mold release?

When I unpacked my new superheavy, there were some obvious patches of shiny/slimy mold release. I carefully washed with a sponge and warm soapy water (I use Dawn, which is also used to clean animals after oil spills).

After drying, it appeared as if I had washed my model with bacon grease. Everything was now slick & shiny.

I let the pieces soak in concentrated soapy water overnight, then repeated the sink full of soapy sponging. No improvement.

I let the pieces sit in 50/50 Simple Green/water, then repeated the sink full of soapy sponging. No improvement.

I don't want to turn to really harsh stuff, both for the model's sake and my health, but this is getting ridiculous. I may try vodka next, just so I can clean & drink at the same time.

Help?

I've never attempted anything as large as a superheavy, but for the smaller bits I find leaving in a sink full of warm (not hot!) water with washing up liquid for an hour or so, followed by vigorous scrubbing with a toothbrush while still in the water, and then being left to air dry works for me. Washing up liquid seems to work quite well. My guess would be that the liquid is used to get grease off cookware, and that this overlaps with whatever grease or liquid they use for mold release.

GCMandrake wrote:I've never attempted anything as large as a superheavy, but for the smaller bits I find leaving in a sink full of warm (not hot!) water with washing up liquid for an hour or so, followed by vigorous scrubbing with a toothbrush while still in the water, and then being left to air dry works for me. Washing up liquid seems to work quite well. My guess would be that the liquid is used to get grease off cookware, and that this overlaps with whatever grease or liquid they use for mold release.

My next attempt will likely involve Fantastic (a household spray-on degreaser/cleaning agent). My concern is that FW might have used a silicone-based mold release, which will take some fairly serious chemicals to effectively remove. (Household soaps are good for anything oil-based, but aren't silicone solvents.)

You are in the US so Simple Green is your best bet.

Soak the model/pieces in it for a couple hours and then scrub each one with a toothbrush.

I do this with all my FW stuff and have had no problems.

I think you may be over thinking things here. What you've done should be more than enough already. I've had plenty of experience with FW resin and never had trouble with the paint sticking after a scrubbing with warm, soapy water and then a rinse.

I wouldn't recommend using anything harsher. Try priming and painting a small bit and see how it turns out. It should be just fine.

do not use a sponge, instead use an old toothbrush and brush the parts. This worked well for me and I simply used dish soap.

Joyous_Oblivion wrote:You are in the US so Simple Green is your best bet.

Soak the model/pieces in it for a couple hours and then scrub each one with a toothbrush.

I do this with all my FW stuff and have had no problems.

Totally agree. I have a large bottle of simple green on my desk for this and stripping paint. I have found only 1/2hr soak works fine.

extrenm(54) wrote:do not use a sponge, instead use an old toothbrush and brush the parts. This worked well for me and I simply used dish soap.

Yeah, I over looked the OP's post where he mentioned using a sponge. You are right, a toothbrush and warm, soapy water is the way to go. It's never once caused me problems.

Warm soapy water has almost never worked for me with my Forgeworld stuff.

When i did my original baneblades I used a product from a local hobby shop called Resin-something and it smelled like Oranges. Worked great but the bottle was tiny and cost $6.

As I was doing my Emperor Dragon and Giant, I got turned on to simple green, but with the giant even that wasn't enough.

Reason being was the his skins was...flawless, so flawless that paint would stick. I had to use a super fine grit 'wet' sandpaper to roughen all the skin a little so primer would stick.

Not sure exactly what you're working on here, but it may call for a light sanding to get paint to stick.

Take some filtered water and mix with some vinegar. Let the resin soak in this concoction overnight. Then rinse off with just filtered water.

G

You may just want to try out painting one of the shiny pieces. Forgeworld resin has a tendency to be super reflective on smooth areas.

Painting on a Macarius tonite. I washed it with warm water and dish soap, had no problems getting the release oil off.

I don't know how SuperClean works on resin but it is safe on plastic GW figures (removes the paint and Super Glue without hurting the plastic). It's super strong, the smell is pretty mild and it's biodegradable. You could always try a small piece of resin soaking overnight first?

GoFenris wrote:I don't know how SuperClean works on resin but it is safe on plastic GW figures (removes the paint and Super Glue without hurting the plastic). It's super strong, the smell is pretty mild and it's biodegradable. You could always try a small piece of resin soaking overnight first?

I recently put an aeronautica marauder into my usual SuperClean bath and it's not something I recommend. It makes the resin VERY plyable.

Like when you heat it up, except there's no way to make it un-plyable again. I've tried heating it then cooling it over and over but it's still very bendable.
The wings on my kit are basically made out of silly putty right now, they don't keep their firmness and keep bending down. And don't get me started on the tail of the aircraft.

What ever you do, DO NOT put grey resin into your SuperClean!!

Oh! Bummer. Thanks for the advice.

try:

buying a cheap electric toothbrush dipped in warm water with standard washing up liquid - if they're twice as good on teeth then they should be twice as good on models!

i recently had the same issue on my macharius i i found the a BRASS wire brush did the trick on the patches of stubborn release agent. NOTE care must be taken as this will produce a very fine resin dust which can be dangerous to your health (according to all resin model manufacturer's).

all ive ever done to clean them is leave them to soak in warm water with washing up liquid, then gave em a scrub with an old toothbrush*
was perfect


* i thought it was an old tooth brush, turns out my girl had got a new one, now she has another new one