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Hey guys,

As always, feedback is appreciated. I recently traded for a plastic space wolf army... It isn't painted to my liking, but I've never stripped plastic before. They paint layers on it aren't thick or anything, could I Spray wolf grey over it? Or do you think I'd lose too much detail?

I'd try with the worst model out of the bunch first. Usually if they're fully painted though you'll end up losing a lot of detail. It's best to go pick up some awesome or simple green and strip them first. basically soak them in the stuff for an hour or so and then using a stiff bristle brush and scrapers take off the paint. Then wash and rinse with soap and water and start all over!

 Bobaram wrote:
I'd try with the worst model out of the bunch first. Usually if they're fully painted though you'll end up losing a lot of detail. It's best to go pick up some awesome or simple green and strip them first. basically soak them in the stuff for an hour or so and then using a stiff bristle brush and scrapers take off the paint. Then wash and rinse with soap and water and start all over!

What do you find works better, awesome or simple green. And none of those damage the plastic? Also, what are scrapers? And what kind of brush would you recommend?

As Bobaram wrote, just try it out on a model first, I haven't had to do that before.
As for stripping, I find the all-purpose household cleaners (any kind) to work very well, I used oven cleaner that worked even better, but be careful with painted objects in your house, it removed the paint on my desk :p
Use an old toothbrush, or an old bristle brush indeed. Use the back of your exactoknife to scrape or so. Use anything to wash the paint off after soaking it in cleaner, as long as you think you wouldn't damage the model if it were unpainted, I'd say.

Depends how poorly they were painted to begin with.

Honestly, most the 2nd hand models I've bought I haven't bothered to strip, I just sprayed over them and repainted them. The vast majority you can't tell unless you get really close. One of my Orc regiments is made up of two thirds brand new models and one third 2nd hand resprayed, even though I painted them myself I can't tell which of them are repaints.

If they've been painted multiple times already or the previous owner put down a thick layer of paint, stripping may be beneficial, but it's such a pain in the arse to strip models that for rank and file models I really don't care enough to do it.

The only 2nd hand models I bother stripping are metal character models, as they are pretty easy to strip and since they are character models it's worth the effort to get them down to bare metal.

If you want to have a good looking army just go ahead and strip them. Toss them into either simple green, or LA awesome and let sit for days if not a whole week. Buy a cheap 1 dollar tooth brush with hard bristles and re-useable gloves to protect your skin. I just stripped about 3k worth of Guard in a week doing that and a stompa, and a dakkajet, and the list goes on.

Strip them. They'll look noticeably better for it and they actually might be something you could be proud of. I've left models in a vat of simple Green for days and didn't hurt the plastic one bit. The paint practically fell off.

If you do choose to strip them DOT 3 brake fluid is a great way to go about it. It's practically odorless and you can pick it up for a few bucks at any auto parts store.



As far as the rumors of it melting plastic I really can't say. I've been using a container of O'Reilly's brake fluid for a while now with no issues but some people seem to have had problems with it.

I use the back of my Exacto Knife or a sculpting tool to scrape, and I have an old rifle cleaning brush that's seen better days for getting the paint off. Simple Green is where it's at if you ask me. But I've heard awesome things about LA Awesome.

Isopropyl alcohol ist also great for plastic minis. I use it frequently, but gonna give DOT3 a chance sometime too, just to compare.

 Kosake wrote:
Isopropyl alcohol ist also great for plastic minis. I use it frequently, but gonna give DOT3 a chance sometime too, just to compare.

Would you say it's better than simple green? Also, is it harmful to the plastic?

I've had mixed results with DOT3, it's great on all of my metal minis but it's damaged a few plastic ones. Had a terminator arm snap off and take part of the torso with it while I was cleaning it, and it's bent some Melee Weapons as well. Really hit or miss though, no massive problems that weren't fixable though.

 Dalymiddleboro wrote:

 Kosake wrote:
Isopropyl alcohol ist also great for plastic minis. I use it frequently, but gonna give DOT3 a chance sometime too, just to compare.

Would you say it's better than simple green? Also, is it harmful to the plastic?

Check spudkins' paint stripping tutorial. I checked a lot of commen solvents for their damage potential and put it there on page 2. I live in Germany, so I have no idea what simple green is (didn't bother to look for comparable products). iPrOH is completely safe, even for long soaking times.
With metal minis you should go for THF & ultrasonication though - much faster and ripps the paint clean off. Had only few cases where the metal was still a little bit tainted by the black primer, most of the time the miniatures look like new afterwards. But don't even think about using that with plastic.