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For a while now I've been wanting to strip a squad of SM back down to the bare plastic, so after trying numerous alternatives such as brake fluid and isopropyl alcohol, I settled on using what I was led to understand was a 'wonder treatment' for removing paint - Fairy Power Spray. However, after soaking the marines, who's paint had already been removed by brake fluid, for 60 hours, the FPS still has not removed the coat of GW Chaos Black Spray. Now, is it just that FPS does not remove primer spray, or am I doing something wrong? Furthermore, if FPS cannot remove this, what can I do to get them back to bare plastic?

Fps won't remove spray primer. I've not come across anything that will remove the stuff, its a nightmare!

Yeah getting your models back to the primer is as good as it gets i'm affraid. You won't be able to tell once painted up, but it will be tricky if you intend to paint them white i guess.

Damn. That's a shame because the FPS has softened a lot of the primer, but it's gone gooey and won't flake off. It hasn't destroyed the detail, but it's obscuring it with the goo. Anyway, thanks for the help. Guess I'll have to try Biostrip20 now, because it's rumoured to remove primer, but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm using FPS at the moment to strip resin, and the stuff is just tearing through it straight down to the bare material. Don't know if this is as I'm stripping resin rather than plastic but maybe a more aggressive approach is needed, such as multiple applications and harder scrubbing?

The primer will have bonded to the plastic, dyeing/ staining it darker grey, or black.
When using fairy power spray, I find the best course of action is to spray it on the model, wait for 15minutes, scrub it with an old tooth brush and scub some more as i rinse it off under the cold tap. Really caked on models, or really stubborn paints might require another round in the powerspray, but I find that most plastic figures come out 95% clean or better in one run.
Figures that I've primed with halfords matt black paint have come out brand new looking, Figures I sprayed with army painter primers had lots of staining in the deep recesses, but it did go down to bare plastic..just darker than a new one
Metal figures, I use pure acetone or lacquer thinners and an old paint brush, works in seconds but will destroy plastic or resin figures.
I've never had to give a figure more than 2 runs in powerspray, but they do usualy need breaking down so that you can actually scrub all the hard to reach areas - the paint doesnt just fall off with power spray it does need to be scrubbed (albeit lightly)

@ Hairy Sticks and Valkyrie - I hear what both of you are saying, but to clarify my issue, I've had them soaked for a good 69 hours at the time of this post, and even when I vigorously scrub the models with a toothbrush little happens. I'm not just talking about light staining, but areas of either heavy staining or downright thick primer. Now, HairySticks, as you'll know from my thread about primers, you yourself speculated that GW's Chaos Black is just black paint in a spray can - not a bonding primer itself. Hence, why do I still have such a problem?

One question I do have, and it may seem a little strange (reading over this, it definitely sounds strange ), but how stiff are the bristles on your toothbrush? I ask because perhaps the ones on mine are a little too soft to be effective in removing the paint...

I use just a softer toothbrush and a much coarser and bigger scrubbing brush, which does the job well. Small observation I know, but I've noticed that scrubbing in a circular motion is much more effective than back-and-forth.

I agree on the circular motions scrubbing, I find that i have to work the brush around in as many directions and angles as possible to get a good cleaning.
About the chaos black, I had always thought it to be a paint rather than a primer, but perhaps youve just proved that wrong Never really noticed it performing any differently to the halfords matt black paint cans, that said its been a looooong time since I bought a can from GW, formula may have changed, the design on the can cetrainly has; I wonder who they buy it from.... as they dont manufactuer their paints, preferring to sub contract that out to companies with more experience and the equipment, and concentrate on miniature production and the rule books.

69 hours seems a bit much I doubt youve had any more stripping power out of it since the first 15-30minutes.

Have you sprayed it on, or actually submerged the models in the liquid? Ive never actually tryed submerging them, but consider that when spraying it on, theres only a small amount of the active chemical there compared to a full on dunking.
Does it help to clean one up as best you can,rinsing away all the powerspray applied the first time round, then respray and go again?
I have had some marine scouts primed with army painter black, that were considerably more stubborn to get clean, theres still a fari amount of black in the recesses, but nothing thick and obscuring. I figured that it was down tot he bristles not being able to scrub effectively in those areas.
I've considered buying myself a new electric tooth brush so I could use my current one for this job hehe

Warpig; there is something that will remove 99% of primer and that is acetone free nailpolish remover(superdrug sells it very cheap). The trick to removing the primer(and it seems true for all the various strippers that i've tried)is to scrub them while they are submerged. Use a hard bristled paint grush or toothbrush and it should remove nearly all of it.

@Valkyrie - I'm gonna invest in an electric toothbrush for that.

@HairySticks - Yeah, the reason I left it in for 69 odd hours is because after I realised it wasn't working too well, the video I'd watched showing how to do the method (Squidy Bidge on Youtube I think) said that the guy had accidentally left his in for 1 week in the solution. Hence I thought well maybe that's what gave it the effect, so I left it in. Also the models were full on drowned in the stuff - they were getting as much air as the Bismarck does. I think I'll see if I can dig out an electric brush as that seems to be effective.

@Slipstream - Cheers, I'll give that a go if FPS doesn't do the trick.