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.

Ok this question has been asked to death but I wanted to start a detailed post with everyone giving their opinions on what works best for them on........

Plastic painted minis

Metal plastic minis

Excess glue traces on the minis

Over lacquered minis

Materials and techniques used (how and why)

I for one am going to start removing the bad paintwork off my eBay purchases and before I start I want the most intel possible to do a good job and not damage anything in the process. I can see on my minis all of the above and need to know where to start

Sounds good so far. My main concern is not to damage them plastics.

So far I've been told for bad glue jobs a really nice Stanley knife for scraping along the areas plus a sharp metal pick for recess areas. For metal I've been told detol for a few mins or longer depends on paint thickness and for plastics a long 1week,soak in water and hand soap. The paint will just peel away with a tooth brush.

How does the above sound as some of your named chemical brands I can't get in my country

Ok so just to be clear about the dettol because that's the only thing listed in the thread I can get my hands on - for plastics do I leave it to soak over night and it will be ok? Use warm water with soap to scrub off paint after the dettol soak with a tooth brush? Lastly what dettol to use there are 2 different ones I think - is it the all purpose one? Thanks

 Chrissy_J wrote:
The Dettol I use is the antiseptic liquid, you can get it from the healthcare aisle in the supermarket.

http://www.dettol.co.uk/products-for-your-family-personal-hygiene-liquid

I submerge the mini completely in neat Dettol in a closed container (I use a big yogurt tub with a lid) and leave it till I remember to get it out again - usually about 24 hours, but I have left if for two days (probably longer) with no ill effects.
I fish the mini out and start to scrub; most of the paint will slide off the flat surfaces but you'll need a bit of work to get paint out of the faces, weapon details, fingers etc.
When you've got most of the paint off you switch to the soapy water and repeat the process.

If you still have some paint left on the mini you can try and pick it off with a pin or a knife tip, or chuck it back in the Dettol for round two.

I haven't had any problems with Dettol on GW's plastic, or with the metal or resin parts I've used for conversions, but if you have any doubts as to compatibility, test it with a non-valuable mini first.

Great I'm going to give that a yo as obviously my concern is them plastics rather than metal models

 Daba wrote:
Fairy Power Spray here. Been pretty successful, removing paint as far back as Rogue Trader.

On plastics too???

Ok here is how I managed to get a shine from my metal models so far. My own technique is a little unorthodox but it worked for me and I'm happy with the results.

Ok so step 1 - I picked a bottle of cheapo antiseptic cleaner. Poured in about half of it in an empty large yoghurt pot.

Step 2 - dumped my metal minis in and left them in for about a week.

Step 3 - with a very thin scraper tool ( pin like tip) I started to pull carefully the paint and just rolled off like bad skin. The crevices were a b***h but the tool scraped them out.

Step 4 - toothpaste. I quickly rubbed some paste over each model after cleaning the paint and washed insanely in water.

The result - brand new metal like minis. That shine is almost like I've seem in new boxes for sale.

My attempts to salvage those really old looking metal space wolves were spent well in the end of the careful hours trying to remove some kind of epoxy glue from t he model. I soaked it in a week and it wouldn't clean, I used heavier chemicals and even dumped them into bleach still no change. Acetone didn't shift it either so by now my hand become a wizard with the scraper tool and slowly but surely I cracked open that crap gunk from the models.

I have 4 of these in total and wanted so badly to get the shine out from these as I had done before with the others. I even dumped them in coke in hope of the penny trick to work. Still nada. The models are now fine in their detail but they look dull and grayish instead of chrome/silver. Have these minis become oxidized or something of were the older metals just a dulling colour. I must say if I scrape a bit of thud surface metal I can see shiny chrome underneath so what's the deal here????