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Hello DakkaDakka peoples. I have an older Leman Russ kit sitting around and I want to remove the side sponsons so that I can either retrofit new ones onto it or simply leave it bare sided. What's the best way to take these things apart?

Depends on how it was put together.
Superglue, hot water and careful prying with a scalpel should do it.
Plastic glue, the joins are welded, so careful cutting is your only option.

How hot are we talking about? Boiling or hot straight out of the faucet?

Depends on how hot your faucet gets.
The hot water makes the superglue brittle.
Boiling may be too hot, and deform the plastic.

I actually managed to pop them off with hot water. Thanks ya'll! I also discovered that it's piss easy to retrofit the Old Leman Russ to accept the new Sponson weapons. All you have to do is to replace the weapon mounts for the actual guns.

FREEZING also makes superglue brittle. Well, MORE brittle as it's just not a very flexible bond at the best of times.

Plastic glued parts need to be CUT apart - as the solvents involved weld the two parts into a new whole.

I found that when soaking some space marines in Dettol to strip the paint, I inadvertently completely dissolved the GW plastic glue that was holding them together, and on their bases.

This is what I wanted to do anyway, but does contradict what I had always known plastic glue to do - and it was a pleasant surprise.

kb_lock wrote:
I found that when soaking some space marines in Dettol to strip the paint, I inadvertently completely dissolved the GW plastic glue that was holding them together, and on their bases.

This is what I wanted to do anyway, but does contradict what I had always known plastic glue to do - and it was a pleasant surprise.

I've been able to just pull models apart that I had glued with the GW plastic glue.
Won't buy it again.

Poor quality GW products? You're mad.

kb_lock wrote:
I found that when soaking some space marines in Dettol to strip the paint, I inadvertently completely dissolved the GW plastic glue that was holding them together, and on their bases.

This is what I wanted to do anyway, but does contradict what I had always known plastic glue to do - and it was a pleasant surprise.

This just reinforces the crapness of their plastic glue. A good one chemically welds the two together and alcomahol can't just dissolve that bond (dettol is mostly alcohol with nasty congeners and other compounds mixed in so that you don't drink it without hurling).