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I am strongly considering stripping my entire army and starting again from scratch. They are all painted to a tabletop standard, yet I am not happy with them and would like to start again.

Has anyone here had any experience with stripping everything, if so, horror stories please. Could you bring yourselves to do it, and is it worth it?

I don't have any experience, but it seems that I would rather strip one unit at a time, then paint it, as long as you are keeping with the same general paint scheme, as it makes you feel less depressed about having an entirely unpainted army, and you can improve one unit at a time, and not feel rushed to paint again, causing another substandard army.

blinky wrote:I am strongly considering stripping my entire army

I've seen movies that start like this.

Argle is right. THere is no reason to do it all at once unless you are planning on starting an assembly line/speed paint that will involve them all. To be blunt, I see that happening around the 7th of never. In a pig's a$$.

And dude, if you prove me wrong, you will be counted somewhere between my personal hero and personal jesus.

I use Castrol SuperClean and undiluted SimpleGreen to strip my minis. The thing to remember is which type of primer you used if it was the overpriced GW primer. Before the last change, I think that was about 3-4 months ago where they switched over their primers, the old ones were much harder to strip from your models.

Castrol SuperClean works REALLY well on metal models as well as plastic. The newer type of GW base spray paint, or Krylon Ultra Flat colors come off very well/easily after a couple day soak in undiluted SimpleGreen. I use a toothbrush and a hard bristle brush to get the nasty stuff off while the stripped model is under hot to warm water.

The older, much better type of GW primer is MUCH harder to strip from models, both the black and white primer. I use Castrol SuperClean for that and a strong bristle brush under hot water.

hope that helps. I can provide some pictures also later on of some recently stripped fantasy models.

i try to keep a rule of never re-painting models...
makes you better looking at something you want to improve on...

idk...
seems like a lot of work to undo...
if it was me i would just buy a new army and paint it...
either a new army entirely, or sell the one you have and buy the same thing and paint it...

Thanks VermGh05t, At the moment I am using Dettol to strip mine, after I found out that only one store in Australia stocks Simple Green.

The primer that I used is GW from a couple of months ago, so I think its fine. Now I'm using a Dulux silver for my models, which is difficult in that its harder to paint over a gloss undercoat, but it gives it a perfect finish. Do most stripping agents remove a gloss base? I dont think I'll be stripping my new ones, but its something to think about.

| agree with Krusty--don't repaint or strip your old models. Start on a new force (if you can afford it), and paint like crazy. At worst, you can always look at the old guys and laugh at how much better you've gotten at painting.

If you can afford it, it's better to start over with brand new miniatures and use all the lessons you've learned.

Failing that, the "horror stories" I have are simply of the frustration of trying to paint fully assembled miniatures!

i have done this before.

for metal minis you cant beat Nitromors, I told on the "whoops" thread of my misdemeaners with that stuff though.

for plastic I find brake fluid gives the best results, again its nasty stuff.

Start over with a whole new army?

Wish I had the extar disposable income some of you have, lol.

For the small effort it takes to buy a jug of Castrol Super clean and dump your army into for a day, it doesn't justify spending hundreds, upon hundreds of dollars to re-buy the army, or buy a new one.

Thats just my $0.02 CDN though

This Castrol Super Clean, is it tire/wheel cleaner? I am having a very hard time finding it in California.

Dude I feel your pain. I'm in the middle of stripping both my Ultramarine & Imperial Fist armies and starting over as all blood ravens. I've got 69 termies, 30 scouts and about 230 marines. Then add in the vehicles. I've also done the same thing with my older Tau to paint like my newer Tau. I recommend Purple Power which you can find at Walmart for pretty cheap. Works better than simple green, and I used to swear by simple green.

Joyous_Oblivion wrote:Start over with a whole new army?

Wish I had the extar disposable income some of you have, lol.

Thats my major problem, Ive been collecting this army over years, and it would take me several months at least to rebuy a similar one. Stripping seems like the easy option.

Darrian13 wrote:This Castrol Super Clean, is it tire/wheel cleaner? I am having a very hard time finding it in California.

Same for me, but in Australia.

@ Glon: Wow, best of luck man. I would only be stripping around 60 models and 2-3 vehicles, so stripping that many models can't be easy.

I have some questions, suppose I go and buy some simple green and dunk my marines, tanks, and dreadnoughts. How long would I have to keep them in the stuff and what do I do when i take them out?

Leave them in for 3 to 4 days. Then scrub them under warm water with a tooth brush.

I've found out that it takes about three times longer with simple green than purple power and more paint is left on.

Last night I removed paint from about 50 marines in about 45 minutes that had been soaking in purple power for about 5 days.