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I have been reading a few of the posts, and I just want to get the clear answer before I throw some plastic models in and they some how dissapear. I know that acetone will eat plastic been there done that back in the day. I have read simple green is a good agent to use, and also isopropyl alcohol. Any help would be great. I got a very good deal off of craigslist, and the paint is globbed on the plastic models, and want to put some much need love back into these minis.

One method I found amazing (but don't know if you Americans have any equivalents) is to use neat or diluted Dettol. If you google Dettol, you'll be able to find what it is and maybe the US alternative. Tried it on plastic, came out brilliantly. Dettol isn't too bad for your hands (unless you have rather sensitive skin) and the smell won't knock your head off as much as something like NitroMors (not good for plastics - only metal minis!).
Hope this helps!

Dettol works because it has isopropyl alcohol in it. You can save some money going by my route.

100% guaranteed way to do it without harming the plastic is;

1. Get some rubbing alcohol/surgical alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) you may be able to get it from a chemist but should be able to get it online easy I bought mine on ebay.

2. Fill a tub (icecream tub is perfect) with the alcohol and drop your models in. Close the lid and leave for a day or two. I forgot a bunch of mine and they’d been left in a month no damage from what I can see.

3. Get a toothbrush and brush the paint off. Works best if you keep it submerged in the alcohol. Buy a cheap electrical toothbrush to speed things up.



The alcohol will suck the moisture out of your hands not sure why maybe osmosis/defusion? So you might want to wear some gloves as it can be a little uncomfortable.
It will smell of booze so try not to get drunk on the fumes

If your models are varnished, would Isopropyl alcohol still work? I'm interested in this because here you can buy them in bulk at any grocery store: no need to ebay or go to a chemistry shop or anything. They're cheap: a 70% solution bottle (500 ml) is more or less $1.

Does it also remove spray primer? Does it touch super glue or any cyanoacrylate adhesive?

As for alcohol sucking moisture: it is soluble in water and once it makes contact with water, it cannot be distilled. It has a lower boiling point so it takes away the water with it once it evaporates. That's also why alcohol causes hangovers and that is also why to prevent a hangover you should drink plenty of water while chugging your sweet, sweet booze. Nothing fatal if you get some alcohol in your hands though: we use Isopropyl alcohol everyday to clean our hands.

I'll look into Dettol chemicals to find an alternative. I think I'm going to try the rubbing alcohol first thanks for the ideas.

Dettol isn't really all that common in the US.

Simple Green is a safe solution for plastics, for any period of time, undiluted.

If the models are varnished, or the Simple Green isn't tough enough, I would opt for something called "Purple Power" cleaner/degreaser (local Dollar General).

Safe on the plastic, eats paint for breakfast, cheap.

Best of luck.

Why does any cleaning solution need to remove the primer spraypaint? Normally that is fine to work over the top of, it's the horrible painting done with the brush that is the problem; that and excessive glue.

what type of paint, i find easy off oven cleaner stripps like now tomarrow... the only downside it douse stain the mini the color it was primed 50% of the time, though you can leave the minis in the stuff no worries for an indeterminate amount of time i left some space marines sit in a jar of it, the three layers of enamle based paint was gone like that

cadbren wrote:Why does any cleaning solution need to remove the primer spraypaint? Normally that is fine to work over the top of, it's the horrible painting done with the brush that is the problem; that and excessive glue.

I've found that removing the primer become a necessity because the products that 'eat' paint (alcohol, simple green, etc) can start to erode the spray paint as well, and give it a wrinkly texture. At this point it has to go as well, because the plastic is fine underneath.

cadbren wrote:Why does any cleaning solution need to remove the primer spraypaint? Normally that is fine to work over the top of, it's the horrible painting done with the brush that is the problem; that and excessive glue.

It's also a problem when the primer is black and you're painting a yellow army.


Also would anyone answer my questions above?

obsidianaura wrote:Dettol works because it has isopropyl alcohol in it. You can save some money going by my route.

100% guaranteed way to do it without harming the plastic is;

1. Get some rubbing alcohol/surgical alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) you may be able to get it from a chemist but should be able to get it online easy I bought mine on ebay.

2. Fill a tub (icecream tub is perfect) with the alcohol and drop your models in. Close the lid and leave for a day or two. I forgot a bunch of mine and they’d been left in a month no damage from what I can see.

3. Get a toothbrush and brush the paint off. Works best if you keep it submerged in the alcohol. Buy a cheap electrical toothbrush to speed things up.



The alcohol will suck the moisture out of your hands not sure why maybe osmosis/defusion? So you might want to wear some gloves as it can be a little uncomfortable.
It will smell of booze so try not to get drunk on the fumes

Hmmm... trying to decide whether the isopropyl alcohol, or the chloroxylenol is the main factor. Lots of things have isoprpyl alcohol in, and are far worse as solvents. Chloroxylenol is only found in Dettol, that I am aware of, and does a much better job...

Rubbing alcohol got my varnish off no problem. As did simple green but thats more expensive so i dont use it now and after using both the rubbing alcohol was far more effective


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Fifty wrote:

obsidianaura wrote:Dettol works because it has isopropyl alcohol in it. You can save some money going by my route.

100% guaranteed way to do it without harming the plastic is;

1. Get some rubbing alcohol/surgical alcohol (isopropyl alcohol) you may be able to get it from a chemist but should be able to get it online easy I bought mine on ebay.

2. Fill a tub (icecream tub is perfect) with the alcohol and drop your models in. Close the lid and leave for a day or two. I forgot a bunch of mine and they’d been left in a month no damage from what I can see.

3. Get a toothbrush and brush the paint off. Works best if you keep it submerged in the alcohol. Buy a cheap electrical toothbrush to speed things up.



The alcohol will suck the moisture out of your hands not sure why maybe osmosis/defusion? So you might want to wear some gloves as it can be a little uncomfortable.
It will smell of booze so try not to get drunk on the fumes

Hmmm... trying to decide whether the isopropyl alcohol, or the chloroxylenol is the main factor. Lots of things have isoprpyl alcohol in, and are far worse as solvents. Chloroxylenol is only found in Dettol, that I am aware of, and does a much better job...

Well look at it this way after leaving models in for a couple of days the paint would slide off with my thumb sliding over it. I've done a load of stuff with it stripped a massive space marine army, my friend introduced me to it and has stripped his grav-tanks countless times (OCD painter).

I've looked into Chloroxylenol it's simply an antimicrobial and it seems to do nothing to paint, its even added to paints to stop it from growing fungus, isopropyl breaks down the bonds in acrylic paint overtime thas whats making it work. It probably wont work on oil paints though.

This is pure rubbing alcohol and definitly works, its not bad for you either, unless you drink it of course. Its also far cheaper than anything else and it's useful for airbrushing too to help the paint go on dry.

The alcohol doesn't work I sat 2 models one in simple green and another in alcohol.

4 hour test in the alcohol nothing paint did budge.

4 hour test in simple green paint started coming off with little effort.

I also have the purple power I'll give that a try.

Removing the paint for some models is a must though. when the primer is just layered on and takes away from the detail of the model time for a chemical bath.

I found that a grout brush works better than a tooth brush also hard bristles make for easier removal.

Dude 4 hours wont be enough. Your gotta let them soak for 24hours.

I wouldn't recommend the habit of getting industrial alcohols (isopropanol etc) on your hands the 'drying' effect is is stripping all the natural grease/oils off your skin. Shifts dirt and paint a treat admittedly.

A fair bit gets absorbed into your skin which isn't ideal given some of the impurities and other things in these chemicals as sold. Same goes for enamel thinners, white spirit etc.

Some people have adverse reactions to organic solvents too, but you'll know that fast enough.

Simple Green is good. However Dollar General has a product called LA's Totally Awesome. Its cheap and works better in my experience.

Another tip, put them in a container with a sealed lid and place it on top of the washer or dryer while doing laundry. The heat and vibrations speed up the removal.

I did say leave it in for 2 days. I'm surprised the simple green worked so quickly when i used it nothing happend till the next day.

Simple green wouldn't get rid off all the yellow primer i used or my imperial fists but alcohol did.

I just chucked a Cryx Slayer last night (from ebay) i know its metal but i can put a vid up if you dont belive this works

Isopropyl alcohol totally works like magic. It also removes spray primer. I just dunked them like 3 hours ago on a 70% solution and when I checked the paint is already falling off.

Interesting mines never worked that fast and its 100% solution.

I wonder if temperature is a factor...

The 4 hour thing was just a test I understand it takes about 24 hrs. I just wanted to see what kind of results would happen after that.

I do wonder though if the alcohol will affect resin. Will test on a sprue of a Forgeworld and Finecast resin.

It does no harm to resin from what i've seen. I've put my landraider and rhinos with FW resin doors and extra armor. No problems at all.

All the same I'm gonna test it. Can't risk my client's FW dreadnought.

Update: I soaked my miniatures for approximately 24 hours on a 70% isopropyl alcohol solution. Results were amazing. It removed the varnish, primer and all the layers of paint after some clean-up with the toothbrush. I tried GW plastic, pewter and FW resin and Finecast and the alcohol didn't affect them in any way at all. Best of al, it's really cheap: 1000ml of isopropyl alcohol here is $2 at most, and it's available almost everywhere. I take t that it's not that common to find it in other countries: a friend of mine studies in London and she had problems locating a bottle of isopropyl alcohol on normal stores.

Hi! We have a product that is becoming very popular .It's a waterbased paint stripper that will not damage your models.There are no fumes off it so it is safe to work with.Please go to our website www.paint-removal.co.uk.We can package it in smaller containers if you wish as i doubt you will need 5 litres at a time!!!.thanks for looking. My email is info@paint-removal.co.uk

I found an awesome paint stripper called biostrip20. A few people on dakka have posted reviews (search). It's miles better than any other paint stripper I've used in terms of speed, quality, smell. Unfortunately I think it is only available in the UK.

IMO Dettol is garbage, and I wish people would stop recommending it. First of all it stinks. Your miniatures will smell like a nasty mix of antiseptic and floor cleaner for forever. Secondly it takes ages to work, and has 50/50 chance of turning the paint into sticky gak, which is even harder to get off (especially if you run minis under the tap). Whoever said Dettol isn't too bad for your hands couldn't be more wrong. Out of all the paint strippers I've tried (including Nitromors), Dettol was by far the most painful to get inside my gloves. Yes I would rather stick my hand in Nitromors than in Dettol, and I have, and Dettol was far worse. Though the main reason not to use Dettol is simple because it isn't that great at stripping paint. Most of the miniatures I stripped with dettol, came out with colours still stained on the plastic. Biostrip does a much better job, and usually gets plastic back to 'new'.

I heard good things about fairy power spray, though I haven't bothered to try it because I still have 5 litres of biostrip left. But I would certainly give that a shot before ever trying Dettol again.

Well I soaked 5 models which seemed to have an oil base paint on the and nothing. Last resort kind of time consuming but if you use. medical swabs like cotton ear swabs, and acetone I know it eats plastic.

But if you take your time and do a little at a time it removes the stuff you want to get rid of. A lot of the features on some of the faces were gone I did this method and got the features back without damaging the plastic.

Hmm if its oil based paint its not going to be easy to get off. I've heard Turpentine will work on oil based paints but have no experiance with using it myself

While on this subject, I've used army painter quick shade on some stuff and whilst it will come off with alcohol it doesn't break down so its a mess and a pain to get out of crevices.

Does anyone know something that will break it down?