Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I'm looking for some advice on stripping paint! I bought some 40K figurines at extreme discount from a friend the other day. The only catch is the guy he got them from took a shotgun approach to painting! It appears as he just layered on thick paint that he got at Lowes. So now my friend and I want to see what we can do (if anything) to get this "wall" paint off our new dudes. Some are plastic and some are metal, we wanted to seek advice as I thought that using gasoline might melt the models without doing much to the paint. We thought of paint stripper too but we wanted to see what we could find before we just dove head long into anything. Thanks in advance!

Remember, don't let anyone touch you until at least the 2nd week.

How about some Simple Green and a new toothbrush? I use it for plastic and metal alike.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh, and it will need to soak for a day or two.

First off.


greatest thread title ever.


Onto the topic!

I've stripped plastics, resins and metals successfully with Simple Green. It takes a few days and some dental tools, but you can do it.

If you are impatient like me, you can always use some of "Granny's Spring Tonic" to strip from plastic and metal. Takes a few hours and a toothbrush. Make sure to rinse them off well afterwards unless you like getting a contact buzz from your models.

Edit: Also, Granny's Tonic will break super glue.

I laughed at that title.
If you have a girlfriend or know a girl who is obsessed with her nails ask her for some nail polish remover. Apply one coat of Hydrogen peroxide mixed with a drop or two of water. Be carefully with the nail polish remover because it might remove some glue as well. This is cheap and quick but the model may break the glue bonds in the process if you used super glue.
I pin all of my models so this dosnt happen for me.
-your favorite chaos god.

haha well worded title.

we dont have simple green here in NZ, but i use Dettol (only the original brownish/orange one, not new fancy dettol).
I just mix it with some water (depending how much i have. but no more water than 50/50, but i normally use as much dettol as i can) and soak the models overnight or 24hours or so. then pull them out and scrub em off.

a few tips i can offer are.
- detol is strong, use gloves and save ruining ur hands.. for a while.. it also stinks, so be prepared to stink like detol.
- scrub hard with toothbrush, you can get like 98% of the paint off
- i remove arms and stuff before soaking so its easy to get under weapons etc.
- fully submerge ur models
- dont rinse them with water until you get all the paint off. i rinse mine in stages with more diluted detol and water and leave them to dry and then wash them again later when theyre done... i think if you dont get all the paint off at the detol stage and then try rinse them.. the paint can go all goopy and sticky and half on half off...

hope that helps

Thanks a lot guys!

I appreciate the note about the nail polish remover dissolving the glue too since as you can imagine, they weren't too careful with that either. I'm not sure using the np remover would work too well on the paint though since it's so thick! It's worth a try too though.

My buddy is coming down next weekend and we'll see what we can do about it, I might have to order some of Granny's Tonic or simple green too.

Good luck with all your projects, I hope to post some of these later if I can get any to turn out well!

There is NO sex in the champagne room...

There are a million different answers but personally I use Super Clean (purple bottle in walmart automotive secion).

I have never lost a model to it and I have probably stripped well over a hundred models (same models many times over).

It has been mentioned but seriously wear gloves with whatever you use as it can remove paint and I have had some unpleasantness without gloves. Just make sure once the paint is cleaned off just really rinse the model or the paint will not stick, also from personal experience.

--Also I came here for the thread name and was hoping for something a little different.

Disappointingly misleading thread title

DON'T USE NAILPOLISH REMOVER

It can work, but it's one of the worst, least reliable options. It doesn't handle thick paint very well, it can harm plastic models, it takes a long time to work, and if you aren't careful you can end up wasting your money by accidentally buying the kind without the necessary ingredient in it (acetone).

My preferred options are Dot3 brake fluid, or Pine Sol. They work wonders on plastic and metal alike (although they could hurt plastics if you left the models in the liquid for an unnecessarily long time, like 48+ hours). 12-24 hours should be alright, and for thick paintjobs it's better to give them multiple short dunks & scrubs than it is to try to give them a single super-long bath.

I have never had the pleasure of using Simple Green, but it comes highly recommended as well, so I would tend to include it in my top tier as well.

Make sure your ripped for the show, that's all I can say.
(Simple Green is ace)

Altruizine wrote:
DON'T USE NAILPOLISH REMOVER

It can work, but it's one of the worst, least reliable options. It doesn't handle thick paint very well, it can harm plastic models, it takes a long time to work, and if you aren't careful you can end up wasting your money by accidentally buying the kind without the necessary ingredient in it (acetone).

My preferred options are Dot3 brake fluid, or Pine Sol. They work wonders on plastic and metal alike (although they could hurt plastics if you left the models in the liquid for an unnecessarily long time, like 48+ hours). 12-24 hours should be alright, and for thick paintjobs it's better to give them multiple short dunks & scrubs than it is to try to give them a single super-long bath.

I have never had the pleasure of using Simple Green, but it comes highly recommended as well, so I would tend to include it in my top tier as well.

I've used Dot4 brake fluid and left some plastic in there for multiple days without harmful effect.

For metal I use paint thinner, which whiffs it off in minutes sometimes and dissolves glue/plastic off as well.

Both of course require gloves/safety goggles and a well-ventilated area.

Altruizine wrote:
DON'T USE NAILPOLISH REMOVER

It can work, but it's one of the worst, least reliable options. It doesn't handle thick paint very well, it can harm plastic models, it takes a long time to work, and if you aren't careful you can end up wasting your money by accidentally buying the kind without the necessary ingredient in it (acetone).

My preferred options are Dot3 brake fluid, or Pine Sol. They work wonders on plastic and metal alike (although they could hurt plastics if you left the models in the liquid for an unnecessarily long time, like 48+ hours). 12-24 hours should be alright, and for thick paintjobs it's better to give them multiple short dunks & scrubs than it is to try to give them a single super-long bath.

I have never had the pleasure of using Simple Green, but it comes highly recommended as well, so I would tend to include it in my top tier as well.

strange ? as ive been useing acetone free nail polish remover for years on plastic/resin/metal and its allways worked perfectly well only takes 20mins then rinse and scrub with a old tooth brush and your done

Acetone, rubbing alcohol, simple green should work forbthe plastics. Brake fluid or carburetor cleaner for metals.

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Acetone, rubbing alcohol, simple green should work forbthe plastics. Brake fluid or carburetor cleaner for metals.

Acetone will ruin plastics in very short time. Acetone is only good for metal miniatures and if they are glued with superglue to bases, You will need a replacement base. I have not checked this personally, but I've read that Fairy Powerspray is good for stripping plastics.

Two words, Banana.. Hammock..

It can be used to rub that paint off after you're done putting the chemicals on them.

make sure you have protection at ALL TIMES!

simplexcity wrote:
we dont have simple green here in NZ

Yes we do.
Great thread title btw XD

.......... Really poor Word choice in that topic their ......

I came as soon as I heard!

Crap that sounds wrong. >.<

What everyone has said about Acetone based Nail Polish remover is true that it will wreck your plastics up. Nifty for metals as it softens up the paint nicely, and a toothbrush finishes it off.

About the glue though, in my personal experience, it doesn't always affect all super glues. I cleaned 4 older BA models with acetone nail polish and they didn't come apart. So if you are specifically looking for one that will, you are going to have to test it.

Oddly enough though it did work a charm for getting super glue off my fingers. But that is a cop out IMO. Scrape it off with a modeling knife like a real hobbist.