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Hey guys, I just bought a large contingent of Chaos Space Marines but they are all based with what I believe is sand. I want to replace them with either a plasticard or quark but I have no idea how to remove these wonderfully painted models from their bases without ruining them. Any and all advice is welcome, thanks!

If it is just a textured base you could use a thin saw like the exacto or a japanese trim saw to cut them off flush with the base.

There is a good chance the sand was glued on with PVA glue, in which case by soaking the sand in water the glue will be loosened and you will be able to scrape the sand off.

Sawing will work if you get a thin enough blade. I would use a jeweller's saw.

If you don't want to saw them, it could be done by roughly clipping off the bases with heavy side cutters, and clippiing down around the feet using light side cutters. Finish by craft knife and rub the bottom of the feet on sand paper to reduce the thickness of plastic base slightly.

Thanks for the quick replies guys! I will be attempting all ideas to see what works best when I eventually get to the project... Currently have to paint a 3k fantasy list and finish an 1850 guard list. Again thank you!

Does Quark know you plan to use him as basing?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/42/QuarkDS9.jpg

The water method sounds best, I had to do this before and used a thin blade to lift the glue and sand off in bits, made a hell of a mess tho.

Whoops had my nose in the chemistry textbook too long. Cork is what I meant (as you've gathered)

I was gonna say - quarks? May be a little small to matter on a base
And the water-method worked for me just fine. Are you trying to keep the paint job on them? If not, if you use Simple Green it will weaken the bond between the model and the base so you can rebase them on cork or some other medium. Some plastic bits may come off as well, but you can glue them back on. Depends on the initial bonding.