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I bought a tactical squad + Razorback recently from ebay, but sorry, no pics.
They were horrible caked in paint... here comes the simple green for a week. When I emptied the bucket of used simple green + miniatures, I noticed the "plinker plinker" sound of bits hitting the sink and getting flushed away. I stopped immedially, reached into the bucket and discovered, that the whole squad + razorback had desintegrated into their bitparts.
The figs were glued with white hobby glue, which got dissolved by the simple green. On the one hand that was a good thing, but I lost some tracklinks of the razorback and 2 helmets *grumble*

TBH, as much as anything, that's why I have a funnel with a metal strainer in it, and tip my paintremover back into a bottle.

1: The stuff will generally come back and strip another 50 models after the first.

2: You don't lose anything.

So I just got a oop Predator, Razorback and 4 marines off of Ebay for $12. Not a bad deal.

Well here's what I see first off:

Preadator's tracks are glued at differend angles and the lasguns are upside down

Razorback is missing the weapons

It looks like they were painted with a mix of paint and sand

Marines are not savable due to the massive amount of paint on them but meh I wanted the tanks anyway.

So I start cleaning them up, and it seems everything has been stuck on by some sort of sticky glue, the tracks and turret come off easy enough but as I pull them apart it's all stringy and sticky.

I still clean it up.

Then I notice that the razorback's gaps have been filled. Sweet! this will save me some time!

How wrong I was. The gaps were filled thats true. They were filled with play-doh.... and then painted over. I spent the next 20 minutes scraping play-doh out of the small cracks every where.

I mean really?! Play-Doh?

Coated in tons of paint is easily fixable by stripping the paint though.

I get a real kick out of rescuing miniatures and making them realize their potential. Often I get so far through it and I feel I'm never get them resurrected. But the step that always convinces me is when I Prime it and it looks ready for a new paint job.

Some of my models look horrendous, multiple colours, spares, extra pieces added in whole panels replaced etc. But get that Primer on and Bingo it brings the whole model together.

before
[/url]


Mid -way


Ready for priming.


Painted


This Land raider was appalling, but cheap, I stripped it and tore is apart and rebuilt the thing. (Glue everywhere, doors wrong, doors didn't open Weapon sponson ruined)





It makes you wonder what proportion of GW Miniature or miniatures in general ever get painted or end up in oblivion?

I can never find the deals on ebay... and I look almost every day.
I guess I'm just not looking at the right time :-/

Try looking for mispellings and also people putting their kids stuff online (after they've gone to university!).

mwnciboo wrote:Try looking for mispellings and also people putting their kids stuff online (after they've gone to university!).

And don't use common terms as most people looking will use those. Instead of using 40k, or warhammer, I just put in space marines or razorbacks. If they forgot big tags in the name, less people will look for them.

mwnciboo wrote:Try looking for mispellings and also people putting their kids stuff online (after they've gone to university!).

Also look in wrong catagories. Best deal on Tau I ever found was in the High Elf Catagory.

Bought a mixed lot of 40k stuff on ebay and just got it today. They didn't appear to be all from the the same army, but most were in good condition, and there were a lot of devastator marines.

Then there were these guys.


The poor marine in red has so much paint caked on that he no longer has any detail visible. Even his head is just a helmet shaped paint-blob. Also the teeth of the berserker's chainsword are almost filled in entirely. I only hope they're not coated with enamel paint, or they may be unsalvageable. We'll see tomorrow when the first batch of models finishes their simple green bath. If I can manage to get the paint off, I'll give them a (hopefully) more decent paint job and post them back up here.

Im thinking of buying things on ebay, but i never ever done it before in my life so i dont know how.
All this makes me weary of doing it though.

Smacks wrote:And they shall derp no fear!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Smokebelch wrote:

Those are awesome btw. Nice save

For some reason the one in front reminded me of Zoidberg! Either way great job!

Rainyday wrote:The poor marine in red has so much paint caked on that he no longer has any detail visible. Even his head is just a helmet shaped paint-blob. Also the teeth of the berserker's chainsword are almost filled in entirely. I only hope they're not coated with enamel paint, or they may be unsalvageable. We'll see tomorrow when the first batch of models finishes their simple green bath. If I can manage to get the paint off, I'll give them a (hopefully) more decent paint job and post them back up here.

I's pretty sure I removed Enamel Paint from a Tau Hammerhead using PurplePower (Castrol SuperClean), but I *THINK* they've nerfed the forumla in the last 3 months. Still, you might want to try it if Simple Green doesn't do it.

I foolishly bought what I thought were 5 metal warp spiders primed black. In reality, it was not primer, but a horrbile mix of black paint and super glue or something.

I bought em 5 months ago and I've only almost finished stripping 1. I just don't want to look at them.

This is an awesome thread! Another man's trash.... I really enjoy seeing the before trashed pics and transformation into awesome mini's.

kaiservonhugal wrote:This is an awesome thread! Another man's trash.... I really enjoy seeing the before trashed pics and transformation into awesome mini's.

to this regard, i can show you my before and afters too... the ones i did before i could do anything, and the ones now. I'm still doing a terrible job because I'm being lazy, but the work is much better than it used to be.

Exemplary work on those 'nids. People really should have to take an IQ test before being allowed to purchase minis.

eorltheyoung wrote:Exemplary work on those 'nids. People really should have to take an IQ test before being allowed to purchase minis.

Lol but then we wouldn't get such good deals on Ebay

I picked up a land raider cursader on ebay a couple years back and the thing was all sorts of messed up. I used it but it was a real stain of what it should have been. So a couple of months back I finally got around to redoing it. I'll post up pics later. The guy put a twin linked heavey bolter on the side of it. And put a couple storm bolter all along the back of it. He tore the hell out of the assault cannon too. I picked up a cursader/redeemer upgrade pack at my local hobby shop and set to work. I salvaged what I could off of it. Mainly the huricane bolters, sponson shields, and assault cannons. I cut off the top part of the sponsons to get the huricsne bolters out and had to rip the assault cannon out. I replaced the puter pieces with the pieces from the up grade kit. I also put on the flame storm cannons on so I could double it off as either the cursader or the redeemer. I also replaced the multi melta with the plastic one as well. All in all it turned out a lot better then the way I got it all those years ago. I'll post up pics later.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
There is one thing about ebay rebuilds. You can pick up some good bits to use for later projects

Rainyday wrote:Bought a mixed lot of 40k stuff on ebay and just got it today. They didn't appear to be all from the the same army, but most were in good condition, and there were a lot of devastator marines.

Then there were these guys.


The poor marine in red has so much paint caked on that he no longer has any detail visible. Even his head is just a helmet shaped paint-blob. Also the teeth of the berserker's chainsword are almost filled in entirely. I only hope they're not coated with enamel paint, or they may be unsalvageable. We'll see tomorrow when the first batch of models finishes their simple green bath. If I can manage to get the paint off, I'll give them a (hopefully) more decent paint job and post them back up here.

BAH, I feel sorry for those marines! Especially the red one! Hopefully you will be able to turn it around.

Hello,
I think the worst I ever got was some Tau, they were purchased as an experiment in painting "anime" looking models, 3 suits and a hammerhead, the landing gear wad glued deployed on one side the front was angled, and the the other side was broken inside. The suits were coated in a tar like paint even after the simple green bath for 2 weeks and were falling apart, some of weapons were not there, and in some cases the mounts for them were broken. The excuse I got from the seller was "well they came that way to me in a trade," I gave them away for people to make bases out of.

Regards,
Carl

Just got done stripping some stealth suits that had been repainted without stripping 3 times. Scrubbing revealed color after color after color.

Ok so I was talking to a buddy who was moving out of the state. He really only wanted to move one army with him and was going to put whatever we didn't want on eBay. This included marines, GK, and DE (only keeping his daemons). Naturally I took a look. I ended up with a new Lelith and a unopened box of warriors. All nice and clean. Then I looked into the marines stuff. Now what I saw might scare some young kids. But sitting there in the middle was a bright pink, yeah pink, Land Raider with the word Blossom written on the doors. On one side of the top their was a rainbow sticker and the other side a sticker of blossom from the powerpuff girls. Basically they were his daughters and she wasn't interested in daddy's toys anymore and wanted barbies. Well I thought if I can get it I'll just strip it down and repaint it. He said $5. Needless to say I got it. Now it has been in Simple Green for over a month. The blossom sticker has mostly come off, but with the exception of some of the heavy bolter and the underside, which are now white it is the same bright freaking pink.

I'm half tempted to just paint over it using watered down coats of black (going to be a BT) and if anyone complains just say hey it was $5. Unfrotunately I would still know so I'm desperately hoping that the pain will come off this time.

I have professional grade paint stripping equipment that works wonders on plastic, metal, and FW resin. If anyone would like I can offer to clean your ebay finds. I have recently stripped some old RT era genestealer Hybrids all the way down to bare plastic. Some of them had at least 4 layers of sealed paint schemes.

I have had a few cases where a dark primer did some actual staining of the plastic but usually I can get the plastics back to original color. My equipment eats superglue and usually eats green stuff.

So what you get back is a baggy of clean bits that need reassembly and usually mold line clean up. Models glued with plastic cement stay glued together around 85% of the time.

I bought an old craftworld eldar battleforce on ebay. The Vyper was fused into one solid piece of plasic while the falcon had never been glued. Everything was covered in thick, blochy green paint on the top and yellow on the bottom. I sanded some of it off. Wish I had the pictures.

Bounty wrote:

Rainyday wrote:The poor marine in red has so much paint caked on that he no longer has any detail visible. Even his head is just a helmet shaped paint-blob. Also the teeth of the berserker's chainsword are almost filled in entirely. I only hope they're not coated with enamel paint, or they may be unsalvageable. We'll see tomorrow when the first batch of models finishes their simple green bath. If I can manage to get the paint off, I'll give them a (hopefully) more decent paint job and post them back up here.

I's pretty sure I removed Enamel Paint from a Tau Hammerhead using PurplePower (Castrol SuperClean), but I *THINK* they've nerfed the forumla in the last 3 months. Still, you might want to try it if Simple Green doesn't do it.

I just did exactly the same thing recently. They have changed their formula and I still think that super clean its gods gift to gamers who actually care what their stuff looks like

EDIT: Not only did super clean remove dried and sealed enamel, it was thinned with laquer thinner, which makes it adhere MUCH better to the plastic. I swear by this stuff.

Akroma06 wrote:Ok so I was talking to a buddy who was moving out of the state. He really only wanted to move one army with him and was going to put whatever we didn't want on eBay. This included marines, GK, and DE (only keeping his daemons). Naturally I took a look. I ended up with a new Lelith and a unopened box of warriors. All nice and clean. Then I looked into the marines stuff. Now what I saw might scare some young kids. But sitting there in the middle was a bright pink, yeah pink, Land Raider with the word Blossom written on the doors. On one side of the top their was a rainbow sticker and the other side a sticker of blossom from the powerpuff girls. Basically they were his daughters and she wasn't interested in daddy's toys anymore and wanted barbies. Well I thought if I can get it I'll just strip it down and repaint it. He said $5. Needless to say I got it. Now it has been in Simple Green for over a month. The blossom sticker has mostly come off, but with the exception of some of the heavy bolter and the underside, which are now white it is the same bright freaking pink.

I'm half tempted to just paint over it using watered down coats of black (going to be a BT) and if anyone complains just say hey it was $5. Unfrotunately I would still know so I'm desperately hoping that the pain will come off this time.

I once pcked up a huge lot of necron stuff (well... points wise anyway) and all of the destroyers were between badly painted, badly assembled and all sorts of other gak. I could have stripped it off, but... honestly? i just attacked it with sand-paper, and went with proggressively finer grains until it was smooth bare plastic again. Any chance you could do the same thing here?

worse comes to worse, after most of the offensive gak's been removed, you could just re-finish the paintjob to be emperor's children.

Yeah I guess I could...just no more powerpuff girls! I really didn't want to have to drop another $66 on my BT though. I'll try the sandpaper thing though. If I do end up ruining it. At least it was a cheap model...well for me.

I laughed so hard at the arm comment. I think this guy was from one of the mutant chapters, like the black dragons, but these are the yellow turds!

>Sorry, this was meant to go after the yellow speeder post<

Akroma06 wrote:Yeah I guess I could...just no more powerpuff girls! I really didn't want to have to drop another $66 on my BT though. I'll try the sandpaper thing though. If I do end up ruining it. At least it was a cheap model...well for me.

I guess it will also depend on the glue though, or the weapons and the doo-bobs and how much is solidly glued in...

I know the rhino has these little.... studs on them that might be an issue, but I personally would have no problem snipping all of these things off and re-furbishing it again afterwards.