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Ok, so I have a bunch of (5) CC Termies soaking in some full strength straight from the bottle Dettol, in the hope of striping their paintjob (which I have heard it does quite well). I have only left it in there for about 20 minutes and I have already seen some of the paint starting to come off. At this rate it will be fully stripped in around something like four hours. It’s quite late now and I have to go to bed. So I’m worried about what could happen if I leave them in for too long.

I was wondering if you guys could help me with my dilemma.

How long can you leave plastic minis in straight Dettol before the plastic starts melting or something goes wrong?
And
How long does it take for straight Dettol to strip paint?

In case you ask I’m using the brown Dettol (the type pictured below.



Thanks in advance,
Flying Pooo.

The miniatures become sentient after 6 hours soaked in dettol. After 7 hours they'll join Al Qaeda. It's ok though cos after 3 hours in straight dettol they melt away to nothing.

You really haven’t answered my question and have just made me more worried. I reiterate How long should I leave them in for?

Overnight is fine.

I've left models in Dettol for a couple of weeks without it affecting the plastic.

Really? that's great.
So it wont affect the plastic at all and I can go to sleep now with out waking up to melted minis?

The time to strip depends on what type of paint you're trying to take off. I had a particularly sticky primer I was trying to strip off a reclaimed e-bay Russ that really didn't want to come off. It meant I left the plastic in the dettol for a couple of days and it wasn't affected at all, even after vigorous toothbrushing to try and remove the remnants.

Yeah it's fine, I've left models in Dettol for days. Just remember not to run them under the tap afterwards or the paint will turn to crap and you'll have to soak them again.

Wear gloves too as Dettol causes rapid defatting if it gets on your skin, which is ugly and painful.

And no matter what other people say... never use white spirit, it damages plastic.

Mine are reclaimed SwapShop minis and the paint is really thick. So I might have to leave it in for even longer.
It's good to hear it dosen't affect the plastic.
Thanks for all of your quick replys.

I've left plastic minis in Dettol for over a month after forgetting they were there and they were fine.

To reinforce what Smacks said don't use water, get an old toothbrush and scrub the minis in the Dettol otherwise the paint goes all gloopy and sticks to everything.

Yes. Also, you'll probably find that black primer spray won't come off. So what I do is put the models in Dettol. When well stripped and cleaned I let them dry then put them in acetone free nail varnish remover for five minutes. This cleans off the primer spray and remaining paint pretty nicely.

BE CAREFUL NOT to leave the plastic models in the acetone free nail varnish remover for more than 10 minutes as it will start to attack the plastic.

Thanks all.
I have just taken them out now and have given them a good scrubbing with a toothbrush. All that is left now is the undercoat which I'm not all that fussed with; after all it's the same colour undercoat that I use. I used warm soapy water to rinse the minis off in it worked ok (the paint did not go all sticky as some of you now said it would).

NOOOOOO: NEVER brush them with a tooth brush after soaking in dettol. You essentially undo the work that the dettol has done and it can get REALLY messy.

I leave them in for a minimum of 9 days and then go at them with tooth picks/pointy things to slide the paint off and smear it on some tissue.

With some models I have to go over with Acetone-free nail polish remover to get rid of the remaining stubborn bits (usually thick traces of undercoat).

dave_salmon wrote:NOOOOOO: NEVER brush them with a tooth brush after soaking in dettol. You essentially undo the work that the dettol has done and it can get REALLY messy.

I leave them in for a minimum of 9 days and then go at them with tooth picks/pointy things to slide the paint off and smear it on some tissue.

With some models I have to go over with Acetone-free nail polish remover to get rid of the remaining stubborn bits (usually thick traces of undercoat).

Since you are in the UK dave_salmon (according to your flag thingy) you might want to check out biostrip20. It's such a pleasure to use versus dettol, and pretty much everything else I've tried.

This was my topic about it.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/373819.page#2894733

GBDarkAngel does a pretty awesome video.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/374698.page#2910014

But to truely apreciate how awesome it is you gotta check this out...
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/387259.page#3147331

Flying Pooo wrote:(the paint did not go all sticky as some of you now said it would).

It can be kind of a lucky bag. I've had some that were okay with water, I've had others where the paint turned to nasty sticky oily crap that basically never came off my miniatures or my brushes.