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So simplegreen works well? I've been trying desperately to clean metal and nothing has worked to my satisfaction... Thanks for the other tips as well!

Simple Green is my preferred method, it takes a little longer to soak then Super Clean and this Tutorial's product, but it cuts through all sorts of paints and overcouts, is safe for metal and plastic, and best of all it is non-toxic. You can put your naked hands in the stuff and come away with nothing more then getting a little cleaner.

Aye simple green works great but definitely takes a lot longer than Super Clean. Super clean works fantastic for both plastic and metals, but you'll want to wear some gloves when handling it as though it's not nearly as toxic or caustic as say paint thinner, the shtuff still burns like the dickens and can be annoying to dispose off.

Overall I prefer Super Clean just because it works faster and I'm lazy.

Simple green got different names but the active process is the same ;
Personnaly i use the french version of it ' Glanzer' in a ultrasonic bath .For very bad figure( with enamel, oil paint , glycero or acrilics) about one hour in this system works very well i got figure that look as nice as if they were new.

How to really end the question: don't put paint on them in the first place (jks)

Methylated Spirits and a toothbrush. Gets off everything except bits in the really annoying crevices, does no evil to plastic. no lasting smell or horrendous fumes. Don't drink it though...

Fifty wrote:Dettol and Simple Green are not the same thing. Dettol is super though, no harm at all to plastic.

Pin sol with rubbing alcohol added to it gives you a similar result, with lower cost

Excellent for Metal Models but I think for plastic simply green might be better.. With that I think it will eat the plastic

I usually walk up with a camera and tell them I'm from Playboy...Ba-Dum Pssshhh!


Thanks folks, I'll be here all week!


Seriously though, Simple Green will not eat plastics and neither will driveway degreaser/purple power.

Simple Green works very well. Thumbs up.

I'll throw my two cents in here since I haven't seen it mentioned.
If you're in the US, you can swing by Walmart and pick up "Dawn Power Dissolver."

It's for cleaning dishes but it works on plastic and metal, doesn't take forever to work, maybe 20 minutes.
Cleans up with soap and water and you can use it in the kitchen sink.
You don't need gloves or a respirator or anything like that either.

It's all I use these days. And it's fairly cheap.

Halsfield wrote:It would be a lot better if we could go by chemicals instead of name brands so it would work no matter where you are/what is available, but I know sometimes that can be difficult to find out.

The ingredient in Simple Green which does the work is 2-butoxyethanol, whose primary use is as a paint solvent and glass cleaner. (< 4% according to the MSDS).
Greased Lightning is < 5% 2-butoxyethanol and < 2% sodium hydroxide, aka lye aka caustic soda. Sodium hydroxide is a very high pH base, just as corrosive as some acids. Mostly used to make drain cleaners and soap (the old-fashioned kind that gramma used to talk about that would take a layer of skin off with it...lol)
Dawn Power Dissolver is <1% Sodium hydroxide and 3-7% monoethanolamine (haven't looked into this one much, but I believe it affects the pH level of the solution).

(these are based on the "standard" versions of the product, I haven't checked the umpteen "spinoffs"

SG is the milder of the three, but that doesn't make it "safe". In small exposures, you should be ok. It's considered generally non-toxic, don't get it in your eyes, and if you let it dry on your skin, you might develop some issues. The MSDS claims no significant known issues after 20+ years of testing.
Anything with NaOH (sodium hydroxide) is going to most likely work quicker and better, and will not harm most plastics...usually. Depending on the product you get, it can heat up very rapidly, hot enough to boil water, or even melt plastic. It can cause heat burns. It can cause chemical burns (it is corrosive), and it will turn any grease, oil or fat it comes into contact with into soap. That includes you. You can buy the stuff straight in some places (in some areas it is controlled and requires a "poison permit". I'm not going into a lengthy tutorial on how to make a weak lye solution (in fact, I'm not going to tell you how to do it at all). You can get hurt with this stuff. When you use any product containing it, don't breathe it, wear eye protection, gloves (preferably nitrile). It dissolves aluminum. If you're unsure what metal your sink/pot/whatever you may be using is, check it with a magnet. If the magnet sticks you should be ok. Some of you may have already jumped on the fact that a lot of drain cleaners are NaOH. That's true. Most of them also have aluminum particles in them. Add water and you have instant bubbling hot corrosive liquid. So don't be tempted to grab the first cheapo bottle of drain cleaner off the shelf at the store. You may regret it.

If you take reasonable precautions, any of the above are going to be fine. Safer than "standard" paint removers. I realize I'm being a bit (a lot?) alarmist with this post, but if you get careless or sloppy, you might end up like the lady here locally who makes soap (my gf got into soap and candlemaking for awhile and they met on some forum, etc, etc). She did handmade soaps for years, and got careless one day. A bubble in the mixture popped while she was stirring and she got splattered. Now she has large brown dots on her face (where she got made into soap) and can't see well out of one eye. Read the instructions, protect yourself and just be careful in general.

wiki links if you care:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2-Butoxyethanol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium_hydroxide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanolamine

I think your post is very relevant and actually helped me a lot--as someone with a chemistry background. You can never be too safe with chemicals... I don't even want to think of the statistics that I know in regards to preventable deaths from chemical spills and intoxication in the home.

Ive been thinking... I used Simplegreen on some resin claws for my chaos dragon and it was amazing... I barely pulled it out of the simplegreen and the paint was like falling off...

However, what happens If I submerse a full model, including his base? Does the simple green affect the wood base, basing rock pebble things (drawling a blank), and rocks? Im not worried about the model, however Im not sure what will happen to the base...

Yea simple green eats glue

I just wanna say that I tried the metho + toothbrush. The method is alot of work, but I had boht those things at home, so what the hell.

Anyways Im left with an aobr marine with considerally less paint on him. not all of it gone, but its pretty good.

Thanx Nemesis.

Begin comprehensive review of Super Clean:

I use super clean to pretty good effect. I have found that it loses its potency if you try to use the same pot for many models. I just added some fresh to it as it evaporated over a few days (used the same for about 2 weeks, it would evaproate a cm about every 3 days or so in a 10 inch square baking pan).

I used it on my Tau, they had a couple thick layers of several year old paint on them. With most of the models i didnt have any problems. There were a few that i think had enamel based testors paint on them, super clean did not do that as well as the acrylic. But overall i am pretty pleased (no degradation to detail on plastic, resin, or obviously pewter, It did weaken the superglue significantly if left overnight, the parts would snap apart under toothbrushing, but without that it would have held). Especially for the price, about 10 USD and i still have a half a gallon after 5k of tau.

As i am in the USMC, i have access to Simple Green through a hookup with the Hazardous Materials guy at another unit. So i may try that in the future if i decide to strip some more stuff to compare it to the Super Clean.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and I got my superclean from AutoZone here in the US:

http://www.autozone.com/autozone/catalog/accessories/accessoriesShelf.jsp?categoryDisplayName=Wash+and+Wax&fromType=accessories&fromString=search&parentId=1818-10&filterByKeyWord=Castrol¤tPage=1&navValue=101090&categoryNValue=101818&fromWhere=Brand&itemId=1090-10&displayName=Cleaner/Degreaser

Unfortunately they do not support mail order for this, Sorry out of US guys.