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If you're going to poorly or horribly assemble and paint miniatures, please refrain from using plastic cement and testors enamels. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Guy who just ripped an assault marine torso in half while trying to separate an arm from said torso.


Edit: to make this more than a rant... I've soaked these guys in superclean for more than a handful of days. Has anyone found a solvent that will loosen or dissolve enamels?

Cool story.

You get what you pay for. Buy unpainted stuff to spare the trouble of stripping, buy unbuilt to spare the headache of disassembly etc.

People lose interest, maybe they never got properly into it, so they want to just offload what little they have for what little they can get, rather than tossing it in the bin and writing it off as a loss.

I bought some Tyranid Warriors that were assembled with the yellow half of the green stuff. *boggle*

Simple green does ok on testers enamals

Yeah, a while ago I finally said to myself "I am done stripping minis...".

I try to only buy unpainted (or very lightly painted) minis from ebay.
Sometimes, its just not worth it....

I use super clean, for me, it works better than simple green.

Super Clean has been knocking out a lot of the stuff I've bought pretty well. And I expect a bit of primer stain on plastics, but this batch looks like it was just dipped in black enamel. I'm considering seeing if I can give them a once over with a wire brush on the heaviest parts of the enamel... maybe the thin score marks will let enough super clean get in to work on the bond area with the plastic.

that is the main reason I mostly buy NIB off ebay. if you find the good sellers, you can find all the stuff to 10-30% off and prevent the hassle of reaasembling/repainting the stuff

As they say, buyer beware.

I got lucky with my latest purchase from Ebay. I got 36 figures (30 plastic, 6 metal) for $30. About 2/3 of the figures are painted, rather decently. I am temped to leave them painted and match up some others to them. The only thing wrong with the figures was the way the seller showed them in the pic.. He angled a few of them to hide their missing weapons or one missing a hand. Good thing I had extra stuff.

I always ask what kind of glue they used to put it together. And I make sure that its either unpainted, just based, or only has a thin layer of paint on it.

davethepak wrote:
Yeah, a while ago I finally said to myself "I am done stripping minis...".

I try to only buy unpainted (or very lightly painted) minis from ebay.
Sometimes, its just not worth it....

I use super clean, for me, it works better than simple green.

Same here, quite a few of the models i have bought in 'primer' is where the seller has primered the model over the top of what ever paint job was on it before, only buying new or metal from ebay now

JWMarines wrote:
Super Clean has been knocking out a lot of the stuff I've bought pretty well. And I expect a bit of primer stain on plastics, but this batch looks like it was just dipped in black enamel. I'm considering seeing if I can give them a once over with a wire brush on the heaviest parts of the enamel... maybe the thin score marks will let enough super clean get in to work on the bond area with the plastic.

If Super Clean isn't strong enough, step up to Easy Off. Same chemicals - just twice as concentrated. Stiff nylon brush (electric tooth brushes are a good option) help to loosen it up. Normally I don't need to resort to metal brushes - though you can use them safely enough with a gentle touch.

You can actually "unglue" solvent cements if it is important enough to make the effort to you. Normally I only bother when trying to salvage worth while long out of production models or expensive models. If you take a knife and use a strong solvent (been a few years, but I think the last time I used MEK) you dip the knife into the solvent and then find the seam on the model. Use the knife to carefully push into the joint allowing the solvent to redissolve the plastic. The cemented plastic, where the bond was made has reduced strength and is more vulnerable to the solvent. More often then not, the people who assemble models poorly, also glue them poorly. Once you pop one corner, you can get to the backsides of the joints and open up the figure like opening an oyster (using the solvent to soften and dissolve the joint).

Once done, you won't likely have much left in terms of alignment pins though, so more care will be needed when you reassemble them. I also normally will run the parts across something like 600 grit sand paper glued down to a sheet of glass in order to square the edges again.

Superclean can wrk on the enamels, if you have a soft brass bristle brush scuff up the paint. This makes openings for the solvent to penetrate between the paint and the plastic. Enamels can take upwards of 2 weeks for tough cases.

Other options, look up the testors website and see if they have any suggestions. Thier models are polystyrene like the minis and someone has had to have wanted to take thier paint off.

And last resort, brake fluid. It will get it off, probly in jsut a couple days. But its toxic and generally nasty stuff. So please dispose of it properly at an autoparts store that recycles motor oil(most chains do it for free).

I try to either get un-touched plastics or metals.

If it's metal, I don't care. It'll just take a bath in straight acetone and it's cleaner than the day it was made.

But trust me, I know your pain.