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For just a standard troop.. I use maybe a minute. But I try and get rid of all the lines as I'm clipping them off the sprue.

I don`t bother with it for the regular rank and file trooper for my IG: Seeing how I have some 350 Guardsmen in various forms and some twenty vehicles nobody will notice it either.

For my Dark Eldar there has been no need nor for my SM force

As a lot of folk have already stated, it very much depends on the model - the material, the quality of the casting etc. But on average, anywhere between one - ten minutes per model, I guess.

Very much depends on the model and the material, but an averige of a few minutes.
For troops, like boyz, it's usually something under a minute. I remove the mould lines which can easilly be seen.

I take a couple of minutes per model...but it also depends on the model itself...I have a huge batch of Chaos guys that I'm getting ready to paint and if I tried spending many minutes on every cultist I would never get any actual painting done. I usually end up spending more time on models that I really like the look of and want to be perfect - my Black Templar Space Marines have a lot of time and care put into them, even the basic troops, so I naturally spend more time prepping them, unlike the Chaos army I am building which is more or less just for the RP that I run (we like to represent things with actual models, even in the Deathwatch RP)

For my Chaos guys, I do a brief runthrough, basecoat them, then speed paint them and slather them in quickshade, a process that I would never subject my Black Templars to

Waaaaaaaay tooo loooonngg....

Sometimes, it almost makes me want to quit the Hobby, just for those nasty mould lines...

Only removing those that really stand out. Cba to care for the rest

Per individual model? Hmmm I paint assembly line, and it takes me a couple hours spread out over a couple weeks to paint a batch, usually groups of 25.... probably averages out to a couple minutes.

 Bear LaMorte wrote:
Anyone that doesn't remove mold lines shouldn't bother painting the model.

I have about 100 guardsman I am in the process of painting (not half badly actually). I take an 'exacto blade' to that sucker, and if it takes more than 30 seconds to take that line down, ain't NOBODY gonna notice.

I suppose if I had MEQ's or something that I didn't have tons of, it'd be worth it to make it all nice and neat.

When I buy minis, I clip them, put them in a bag then I file the mold lines away (all of them, and I mean all of them) before assembling the thing. Great thing to do in the bus while listening to your Ipod. So there's no easy way to measure how long exactly it takes per trooper, but it takes at least 5-10 minutes per bit, depending on its complexity.

Edit: I found out that cyclindrical files usually work best. Knives = blood and mess.

For me its one aspect that has got worse over time, metal figs are easier, gw plastics must be the worst ever-mould lines all the way round every part.
Old Grenadier stuff had no mould lines, just the odd flash spike on the base. I think it was Mithril miniatures in the early 80`s that came primed with no mould lines.

Seconds. Again, I just don't care if you can't see it from arms length. So, a quick run around with a scalpel, removing any obvious bumps, lumps and bits and good enough for me...

I usually spend 3 to 4 minutes per model, depending on the severity of the mouldlines, and the area in which they are located.

It depends on how many models I am working on. If I have twenty models to build, base, and paint, then I spend about a minute each, but if I only have about five to build, I'll spend more time.

I generally only hit the ones on flat and raised surfaces, and the really awful ones on IG boots.

For a single troop, 1 dude? Several minutes. A Dreadnought might take me a half hour, or so.

I'm in no particular hurry when I hobby. That's the whole point for me. I care more about painting and modeling than I do about playing, so if a unit takes ages, then it takes ages.

 FabricatorGeneralMike wrote:
I voted other; As long as it bloody well takes to either file or scrape all the mould lines off. I don't know how many models I have seen that have AWSOME conversions or paintjobs that is ruined by mould lines. If you can take the time to do awsome Greenstuff work or a neat kit-bash please take the time to remove the mould lines.

Everytime you don't remove a mould line before painting a model GW kills a kitten, Why wont you think of the kittens!!!??

SO True. Especially with uber detailed models such as Black Templars, Dark Angels, Sanguinary Guard it is really obvious as the power armour looks wrong with a great big line going down it. The downside is that you have to spend forever filing and trimming down lines that go over tabbards, purity seals, cloaks, icons, censors, etc. Such a pain!!
Equally Chaos Marauders and Catachans are impossible to do in less than an hour as the parts don't even line up on many of them. This is insanely frustrating and means you have to combine removing mould lines with slicing up shoulders and greenstuffing. This makes the actual mould line removal time impossible to determine.
My Eldar are by far the easiest of all my models to trim-nice clean lines make them really obvious before you start to paint, and they are realtively uncluttered with kit, and are in nice open poses to make it that bit easier.

Depends on the mini, number of parts etc, but I guess it takes me about 20-30 minutes per model.

I did have recently spend a couple of hours neatly filing down the mould lines on a Tactical Marine for a painting project.

I really hate mould lines btw

My least favourite mould lines ever are on Tau tanks. The engines are two parts and never seem to line up properly. For an army thats signature feature is clean lines, mould lines running through the centre of the tanks is just horrible. I got together 7 tank's worth of engines and spent the better part of a day filing and greenstuffing them.

Now the other guys at my club come over and say 'hey, no mould lines on your engines. neat'..... so not worth the time investment

I've found that most mould lines don't show, so I glance at the model with a dry-fit, and only bother with the visible ones.
I _always_ drill gun barrels (scatter lasers are a pain), but mould lines are taking something of a back seat.
It's still a few minutes per model, though.

Depends on miniature, marines, several mins. Boyz....a min tops.

Half an hour or so (depending on the model), and it's truly the most boring part of the whole process!

This is my least favorite part of the whole hobby. I basically spend as little time as possible on this because I hate filing mold lines more then seeing mold lines on my painted figures.

I voted 'don't remove them.' Its because, I would prefer to do something more fun than just sit there are remove moldlines.

I use a production line approach, but only about a minute or so for each Space Marine/Guardsman sized model.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I prefer blades to files though: more precise, quicker and NO BLADE HURTS ME, SUCKA!

I spend as long as it takes to get them off. If I am the one pulling off the sprue then I wont put the piece down until its flashed all the way. I often even sand out glue spots where joints meet on vehicles.

I did several minis... but you should put another one in that is like "Until all mold lines are completely removed" as that's what most people do I believe. I wouldn't spend 30mins on a space marine if it really only took about 15mins... waste 15 more mins xD dunno just what i'd do.

Voted several minutes, but really I don't worry about them unless I see a particularly atrocious one while I'm working over the part with a knife and file to remove any little hunks of sprue left over after I clip them free.

On that subject I really need to get a new set of clippers...the ones I have are an ancient pair of my dad's he's used to strip wires his entire life. They don't cut the piece off the sprue so much as tear it out by raw force. I usually spend more time filing down the plastic nubs than I do actually assembling the model.

Usually five minutes or so. Much more for resin miniatures, particularly FW MkIII Iron Armour. I have scars from those guys, both physically and mentally.

I usually don't bother as i usually don't have to. But i answered a minute because sometimes i spend about 30 secs clipping obvious bits off. i even use clippers for the tiny bits(when I can be bothered), much quicker than filing.

Now finecast, there's a different story.