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yeah,
I want to strip three plastic ork buggies. Here in the UK we have no access to SuperClean, so I checked the dakka article system for UK products and found two recommendations dettol disinfectant and fairy power spray. I also decided to buy a degreaser available in the UK, and see how it does.
So at Halfords I bought Swarfega oil and grease remover.

Price:
Green Dettol Disinfectant £2.23 1000ml....... 2.23 for 1L
Fairy PowerSpray £3.47 375ml.......... 9.25 for 1L
Swarfega Degreaser £6.99 2000ml.... 3.49 for 1L



Test Subjects:
3 Plastic Grots
Undercoated Green with humbrol spray > Painted in Citadel acrilic paints > several (bad) coats of various varnish.
Note these guys started off missing their gun/arm (they are the drivers of the messed up buggies I need to strip)

Tools:
Vibrating tooth brush, disposable gloves and paper towel & Newspaper (keep the area clean)

Warnings:
Green Dettol Disinfectant & Fairy PowerSpray- Irritant avoid contact with skin and eyes
Swarfega Degreaser - Irritant avoid contact with skin and eyes & was the only product to come with a child safe container Lid.

Test Begins:
Each Test subject is placed in a container and covered with cleaning product...

Interesting observation: is that in the Swarfega the model floats... but the grots sink in the other two?
Note: GreenDettol smells nice... like apples...

30min Test Point:
Grots removed from the cleaner placed under running tap and scrubbed with toothbrush.

then Wiped dry with Paper Towel.

30mins Results
Fairy Power Spray

Best in Test so far with areas of clean plastic showing.


Green Dettol disinfectant

paint is coming off the model... mostly down to the green undercoat, but not doing so well in the deep details.


Swarfega

Seems to be doing quite well all over. the gun looks messy.. but remember the undercoat was green...


All three had removed alot of paint, probably enough that if you wanted quick results you could repaint from here?
But this is a test... so I put them back in to see what happens....

---

1hr 30mins Test:
Fairy Power Spray

Still the Best in Test... paint in deep detail is soft.. could be picked out with a needle.


Green Dettol disinfectant

Much improved... again paint is soft


Swarfega

Improved, but not by much... look at the paint still stuck to the gun!? paint is soft in parts.

All models still seem to be Ok, no sign of softness or damge to plastic...
Back in tubs till tommorrow morning. I look forward to seeing what the over night soaking does...

---

Ok final test point... they've soaked for a total of 18hrs..
(Sorry about picture quality here camera battery is dying so I took one photo of all 3 grots and cropped out each)model.

Fairy Power Spray

Improvement- Results are acceptable - I think this guy has been stripped down the best. detail on his eyes fingers and club are completely visable.
Paint that remains is mostly like a stain, and will paint over perfectly...
If I recieved this mini from eBay auction with the description 'mini was painted and has been stripped' I'd be happy with what I recieved.

Green Dettol disinfectant

Improvement- Results are acceptable, some deep rooted paint remains.
If I recieved this mini from eBay auction with the description 'mini was painted and has been stripped' I'd be kinda happy with what I recieved.

Swarfega

No Improvement- Results are UNacceptable -
If I recieved this mini from eBay auction with the description 'mini was painted and has been stripped' I'd be UNhappy with what I recieved...

*Fairy Power Spray Wins this test for stripping troop type minis in my opinion..
But Green Dettol wasn't that far behind. and is much cheaper which is important in the next test...

----

The Next Test is to strip larger multi part plastic models.
Also I've decided I'm going to drop Swarfega from the Test... :(

Test Subjects:
Two Ork Buggies
Undercoated Green with humbrol spray > Painted in Citadel acrilic paints > Dusted with ForgeWorld Powders > several (bad) coats of various varnish.


I switched Containers, I got these Square Tubs at Sainsburys 4 for £1.
The entire bottle of Fairy almost fills only one tub (this is including the Fairy power spray liquid from the first test).
The dettol could fill two and half tubs.
This I think is Important if you had say a bunch of landraiders or monoliths to strip, Fairy Power Spray will cost you about £30+ (minus the space the models take up) to fill a 5L bucket, while with Dettol will cost you only £10...
Both pruducts say they can be Diluted... but I don't think we want to do that?

I Also added a bunch of other stuff I wanted stripped in the Fairy Container but I don't think this will skew the test too much?

24hr results:
Fairy Power Spray.

Buggy is stripped to the base coat, and that has been reduced to a thin coat of paint - perfect
Grot stripped perfectly.
Metal is as good as new!

Green Dettol.

Buggy is stripped enough - details are free of paint and varnish. The paint that remains is thin. it's perfectly acceptable for basecoating.
Grots looks perfect, just stained from the basecoat.
The Metal rockets Stripped perfectly, only deep rooted paint remains.


Conclusion:
Fairy is easily the better Stripping agent! But costs 4 times as much.
Dettol gets the job done, and is what I plan to use for future very large model stripping.

Extra..
This was my GrotMek... before paint and a horrorible coat of varnish and then stripping...


After 24 hours in Fairy Power Spray; This is what is left of my GrotMek...

Fairy Power Spray eats GreenStuff!
It goes all soft and somewhat gooey!?
But this could be useful, the GS is soft and easily pulled free from mini's.
I think I'll look twice at some of the horror conversions you see on ebay... all those parts can be saved!

And to end on a good note, Final Photos of the three Grots... they have all been given a extra 24hr soaking in Fairy Power Spray!

Lovely!

Panic...

I will be intrigued to see the results of this test. So far I have been using fairy power spray to strip a load of models, and whilst it works fine on metals, on plastics it can be very tempremental. Some have come clean after only a few hours, whilst patches of basecoat persist on others despite having been soaked multiple times. If either of the other two prove more useful, it would be very useful!
Cheers!

Note: Dettol smells nice... like apples...

How odd. Over here, Dettol is orange, and smells like... well, Dettol.

insaniak wrote:

Note: Dettol smells nice... like apples...

How odd. Over here, Dettol is orange, and smells like... well, Dettol.

Original Dettol does here too, but he's using Dettol cleaner, which is not the same product. Just so you know.

I'm interested in this test too. Everyone always goes on about simple green, but it doesn't seem to exist here at all, unless you order it online (and i'm damned if i'm paying postage for 1Kg/L products). The other one i've heard of for plastic minis is acetone free nail varnish remover, but i've not seen that before.

You used the wrong Dettol. You need to use the original which contains the active ingredient Chloroxylenol.

deleted....

yeah,
Fifty - I looked for the original but they didn't have it at sainsburys... So I picked up the green stuff. The idea is to try different cleaners easily available, and find a winner. and to get some photos of the results... from here on in I'll call it Green Dettol!

So I Finnished the Single mini test (results posted in first post)
I did the small grot models first because I wanted to check the products didn't melt plastic, before I plunged a bunch of models in!

IMO
Fairy Power Spray is winning, It's 30min results were impressive, and the overnight soak removed about 95% of the paint.
Green Dettol is a close second it's cheaper and smells of apples! the first results weren't that good but after the over night soak I'd say 90% of paint is removed.

I put the Swarfega model in with the Fairy Power Spray Buggies to see how he cleans up...

PAnic...

Mr. Muscle Lemon Kitchen Cleaner.
Seriously, it's the best I've found, better than Power Spray by far, 750ml bottle in Lidl for £1 or so.
try it, it's awesome!

Throw your painted stuff in a jar full, leave it an hour or so, repeat as necessary*

*in my personal experience, you only need to repeat for REALLY heavy base coats, or to give the hard-to-reach parts more of a soak after the majority of the paint is off.

Is that Mr Muscle plastic safe then?

Absolutely!

Strips metal to like 95% primer with very little effort, resin about 90% and plastic to about 75-80%
This is only my personal experience of course, and mostly with Marines & FW Pads, but I really recommend it!

The only problems I've had so far are:
- It breaks superglue bonds fairly easily, more easily the longer you soak the mini (note: this isn't necessarily a bad thing)
- It made some of my resin shoulder pads go 'spongey' but this was on some models I forgot about and left soaking for 4-5 days (the plastic they were attached to was still perfectly fine)

I've also used it to clean up painted models.
Base coated a tank with Humbrol Acrylic Gloss spray, and got a bit enthusiastic with the weathering.
Quick spray on a cotton bud (cue tip?) and it is great for clean-up without damaging the base colour!
WARNING: I've only tried this with the Humbrol Gloss Acrylic Spray, as it was very durable and relatively hard to paint over!!!

I've always picked up the original Dettol fairly easily at Tesco, but maybe Sainsbury have moved on...

I find toothpicks are better at getting in to tight spaces compared to cotton buds.

Might try some alternatives soon. Not having much luck with my latest batch of cleanups.

For cleaning plastic minis I just use soap and warm water. Dont have to worry about toxicness and wearing gloves.

Woulfgar the Vengeful

Million wrote:
I'm interested in this test too. Everyone always goes on about simple green, but it doesn't seem to exist here at all, unless you order it online (and i'm damned if i'm paying postage for 1Kg/L products). The other one i've heard of for plastic minis is acetone free nail varnish remover, but i've not seen that before.

http://www.boots.com/en/Boots-Expert-Acetone-Free-Polish-Remover_920381/
http://www.superdrug.com/Offers/SUPERDRUG-NAIL-POLISH-REMOVER-ACETONE-FREE-250ML/invt/160660
http://www.chemistdirect.co.uk/cutex-acetone-free-nail-polish-remover_1_155992.html

I've only ever tried the Cutex brand. The ingrediends are different in all and I forgot what the magic ingredient is. In my experience this is the best.
Within 15-25 minutes of soaking, I can scrub down to 90+% stripped. It really is that good.

Only problem is it stinks. It's not one for confined spaces that's for sure.

yeah,
Final Results of the FairyPowerSpray and GreenDettol posted...

Culial- I will check Mr. Muscle Lemon Kitchen Cleaner out and if I find time I'll dig this thread back up and add the results. It's a shame I didn't hear of it before I started this test!?

Panic...