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What I am finding curious is all of the people saying that stripping models is a hassle. If that's the case you might be doing something wrong. Admittedly I only strip metal minis...but that's literally two steps: 1) Set in ultrasonic with a cleaning solvent of your choice....2) brush off.

Before (eBay):


After...:


Plastics can be done with...what, denatured alcohol or something similar. I don't bother with plastics because I don't trust that people assembled them correctly. As far as metals go, they're extremely easy to restore back to original metal with very little effort.

The only second-hand models I have came unpainted and unassembled. I'm unlikely to buy a second-hand model that's already painted - I'd feel weird about stripping off what someone else had put time into. If a friend or family member wanted me to have something they'd painted then I'd happily include it, as long as it wasn't jarring. I've asked family members to paint models for me in the past, but asked them to stay within a rough colourscheme so they don't look odd with the rest of mine. That's as close as I come, as I like knowing my collection has been my work, and enjoy the time put into it.