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So I just bought a Chimera tank from my friend today. I knew full well that one of the treads was on the wrong way. The good thing is that he didn't use plastic glue, but instead used Zap A Gap which is essentially super glue.

Now I've already put the Chimera into the freezer. I should mention that its not a fully assembled Chimera. Its just one of the side pieces that has the treads on it. It also only has the two long tread pieces and another piece of tread on there.

Getting back to my question what can I do to remove the super glue? I've heard that freezing works, but I don't know if it will work with these treads. Is there any sort of liquid I can put the piece in that will soften the super glue bonds? Thanks for the help.

Acetone (nail polish remover) should work. Just don't go overboard.

Red Comet wrote:Now I've already put the Chimera into the freezer... I've heard that freezing works, but I don't know if it will work with these treads.

So, did it work?



Ghidorah

The freezer doesn't break the super glue it just makes it brittle. You are still going to have to pry the pieces apart.

if the freezer doesnt work try Super Clean that you can get at Walmart. it will really weaken any CA glue to the point that it flakes off with little effort. thicker blobs of glue will take more effort though, oh and it turns all of the glue a white color so its easy to find and remove.

Acetone will melt the plastic, I wouldn't recommend that. I've used simple green before to disassemble superglued space marines and even a Land Raider. Left it in the simple green for a week or two and the LR fell apart of its own accord. Gets all the paint off too if you're worried about that. I've gotten all my simple green in the automotive cleaning section of walmart.

I too have had great luck with Super Clean. Used it to disassemble two plastic carnifexes. Though I left them in for a month.

Do note that the super clean needs to get into the cracks to weaken the glue bonds. Sometimes the parts are fitted so tightly together that this doesn't happen.

Warm/Hot water should also do the trick, certainly worth a try Maybe add some detol (or similar disinfectant) for good measure.

Zap actually sells a debond product.
http://www.supergluecorp.com/zap/zap-z-7-debonder
As do most CA manufacturers.

So to get back to all of you. I left the Chimera tracks in the freezer overnight. I know that freezing it only makes the bonds brittle. I tried prying the two parts off in the hopes that the treads came off and unfortunately my friend really did put a lot of glue and I can't reach any of it with a blade..

So with all the suggestions I've gotten I'm going to put the tracks into some hot water. But exactly how hot should the water be? Should I get a pan and boil the water and leave it boiling when I dump the tracks inside? Or should I boil the water leave it in there for a bit as the water cools down?

If that doesn't work I'm going to use Simple Green since I have some lying about and if that doesn't work I'll try Super Clean. I really do hope the water does the trick though.

I doubt that the super glue remover from Zap A Gap could even reach the super glued parts. Its nearly impossible to.

I would suggest that hot bath water (i.e. from the tap) should be enough, not boiling and certainly not a pan on the cooker as this will be 100+ degrees C and you could run into problems.

The heat should soften the bond and the slight expansion of the plastic should help free bits apart.

Simple green, Purple power or Super Clean all have Butoxyethanol as their main active ingredient and will all work as a soak that will weaken super glue bonds. Put it in a vat of the stuff, leave it for a few days (or weeks) and you should be able to pry it apart.

Be very glad that your friend used super glue and not plastic glue. I rehabbed a few Basilisks last year that had been assembled with plastic cement. Alot of work that was.

If you have a really cold basement freezer, putting it in that for a day or two then straight to hot water will cause the glue to break apart.

however if it was glued with the type that melts the plastic together, you are screwed.

I tried the bath in Hot Water just now and I couldn't pry anything apart.

So its simple green to the rescue now! I'll just have to have some patience then until I pry it all apart. I'm glad it wasn't done with plastic glue...If it had been I probably would never be able to remove any of this. Thanks for all of the suggestions!

I will be back once I get the pieces apart.

I used pure Iso-Propanol (an alcohol also used for disenfection). Just make sure you get the 90% pure stuff. Most people sell 70%.

Whereas this is great to wipe things clean it won´t do anything to the Chimera.

This stuff also removes paint from plastic minis, so you won´t need any more "brake fluid" sessions.

as a budget option to the simple green if you haven't bought it yet, if you go to your local dollar store you can pick up a bottle of LA's Totally Awesome, it works much the same way as Simple Green, weakens superglue bonds, etc and only costs a buck a bottle.

I finally got the treads off of the Chimera literally minutes ago. I figure I may as well share for all of those interested.

I left the Chimera in Simple Green. It was completely immersed and nothing happened to the pieces. Its been a full month since I dropped it in so I pulled them out today and put the piece in acetone completely submersing it. I left it inside for roughly two hours. The plastic showed no signs of warping. Curious to see if the bonds had weakened I took the butt end of the exacto knife and pushed the treads out piece by piece from underneath each tread. Some plastic was torn in the process, but its not a big deal since none of it will be visible.

On a funny note I threw in a Hordes miniature to remove some excess superglue. The plastic base got warped after a little less than 2 hours and even then its not destructive warping. I think people exaggerate what acetone can do or my acetone just sucks.

1 your acetone sucks, acetone should eat and melt plastic very quickly. I have seen many people in the last 12 years destroy models with it.
2 Superglue is a strong chemical bond freezing/heating is not a good way to defeat it, you are wasting time of you do it and the results are generally poor.

Try this instead, this is a link to a post here on dakka.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/393930.page

or you can check out my blog in my sig.

I have acquired two gigantic armies over the years by buying poorly painted/assembled minis from folks and stripping them. I have the best results from warm superclean, or superclean in a ultrasonic cleaner.

Red Comet,
I'd be interested to know what the concentration of Simple Green you used. It's always worked well for me in the past for paint and super glue on what is probably a model count of hundreds!

I agree that your acetone is proably bad. Acetone is pretty nasty, plastic warping/eating stuff.

I'd give theunicorn's suggestion a try. Superclean has the same main active ingredient as Simple green, but it also has an additional cleaning agent that makes it not as non-toxic, maybe that will make the difference.

Just today I stripped down a new ed hive tyrant, 20 plastic bloodbowl figs, a metal escher fig, and a plastic ravener. I used heated superclean 120 deg F. It took less than 2 hrs to totally strip everything. The Hive tyrant was assembled with a full bottle of zap and had at least 3 different paint jobs. the glue on the tyrant loss most of its bond very easily and just flaked off with a sculpting tool.

theunicorn wrote:1 your acetone sucks, acetone should eat and melt plastic very quickly. I have seen many people in the last 12 years destroy models with it.
2 Superglue is a strong chemical bond freezing/heating is not a good way to defeat it, you are wasting time of you do it and the results are generally poor.

Try this instead, this is a link to a post here on dakka.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/393930.page

or you can check out my blog in my sig.

I have acquired two gigantic armies over the years by buying poorly painted/assembled minis from folks and stripping them. I have the best results from warm superclean, or superclean in a ultrasonic cleaner.

I bought Wal-Mart acetone. I guess the stuff must be watered down, because it did not warp any GW plastic at all.

I saw the post just now. Sadly it would have been nice if you had posted it 2 weeks before I had posted my thread. It would have been incredibly helpful and I most likely would have just gone straight to your solution on removing super glue since I was in no rush to get the pieces apart. I will keep this in mind if I ever have to take a model apart and it was done with zap a gap or super glue.

Eilif wrote:Red Comet,
I'd be interested to know what the concentration of Simple Green you used. It's always worked well for me in the past for paint and super glue on what is probably a model count of hundreds!

I agree that your acetone is proably bad. Acetone is pretty nasty, plastic warping/eating stuff.

I'd give theunicorn's suggestion a try. Superclean has the same main active ingredient as Simple green, but it also has an additional cleaning agent that makes it not as non-toxic, maybe that will make the difference.

I'm not sure what concentration of Simple Green it is. I got it from K-Mart and I want to say its a little more than a gallon. I'll take a pic of it or figure out the concentration when I get home since to be honest the Simple Green should have completely made the model fall apart.

theunicorn wrote:Just today I stripped down a new ed hive tyrant, 20 plastic bloodbowl figs, a metal escher fig, and a plastic ravener. I used heated superclean 120 deg F. It took less than 2 hrs to totally strip everything. The Hive tyrant was assembled with a full bottle of zap and had at least 3 different paint jobs. the glue on the tyrant loss most of its bond very easily and just flaked off with a sculpting tool.

Good to know that it works that well! I will give it a shot next time I do something like this.

Thank you for all the helpful replies everyone!



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I apologize for the double post, but here's what I found with the Simple Green.

Its economical concentrate. I have no idea what that means. I have the 2 Liter bottle of Simple Green. I have a feeling its diluted already.