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I forgot who commented that Biostrip 20 should be the new go-to, and that we should forget Dettol and Fairy Power Spray, but someone did.

So I got some to try out!

I coated two of my plastic test minis (sad old monopose Bret Archers) and soaked them while I ate my dinner. One had been painted with Army Painter coloured spray primer, AP and GW paints and then dipped in AP Quickshade (so has a varnished finish). The other had been sprayed with a different AP primer and washed with AP ink. Less of a challenge.

They soaked for less than the minimum bottle-recommended 30mins, but I fished them out and scrubbed briefly with electric toothbrush with and old head on it. The results were great, but some paint remained. An unfair test but a good result.

I sprayed the minis again and left for about 2.5hrs while I went to roller derby training. I rinsed and scrubbed lightly with the toothbrush again, and we have near-as-dammit total paint removal. Nothing clinging. No horrid Dettol stench that never leaves. The only colour left appears to be staining of the plastic from the coloured primer spray.

I'm sold on this stuff! I put some picture evidence in a gallery, with notes on each image: http://www.dakkadakka.com/core/gallery-search.jsp?dq=&paintjoblow=0&paintjobhigh=10&coolnesslow=0&coolnesshigh=10&auction=0&skip=30&ll=3&s=mb&sort1=8&sort2=0&u=10953&g=48477

I'd say go buy some Biostrip!!! I'm switching right now.

Looks very promising! How is it for price/uses for the money?

What did your cat think?

Eddie was entirely unfussed :-)

The big spray bottle I got was £8.99 for 750ml in a spray bottle via Amazon Prime. No doubt I could find cheaper next time if I shop around but it was delivered next day to my office. I used very little due to the gloopy, stick-to-the-mini consistency, so it will last a good while. Should be great for stripping vehicles as it'll cling not just run off.




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I was very impressed it got the Quickshade off. That was awesome.

After hearing people get so excited about it, I was honestly expecting more. Brake fluid won't even leave a memory of coloured primer, and iso also seems more effective - have you tried either of those?

I am still kinda tempted to get some biostrip, but it doesn't look like the miracle sauce I was hoping for

Looks very gentle to me, which is surprising, considering its intended use on household paint.

Reminds me a bit of Modelstrip which I never see touted on Dakka. I owned some of that once and it did nothing, so this is clearly better.

Interesting. I have some models too to strip so will be giving this a try.

D

I have no interest in messing about with carcinogenic brake fluid when I can use a safe, non-toxic option that I can just rinse away, to be honest.

This did what I needed it to, as I don't mind discolouration if the gunk has gone. And the factit stripped the Quickshade was what I needed, as I'm a lazy painter and plan to dip just about everything. I was super-scared that I wouldn't be able to fix errors or change my mind after dipping, so it's good to know this does the job.

I'll update with more pics when i strip some older, more caked items!

I get ya, I don't like using brake fluid either. What about Iso though? I'm interested to know how you think it compares.

For a 3 hour soak with scrubbing, that is pretty good - and honestly, anything is better than Dettol.

Scrubbing wasn't fierce either - tbh I could have got a better scrub result with a regular toothbrush. The electric seemed like a timesaver but I forgot about the inbuilt pressure limiting! It did the job here though as it was just clearing and cleansing, not srcrubbing to get stuff out.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
I forgot who commented that Biostrip 20 should be the new go-to, and that we should forget Dettol and Fairy Power Spray, but someone did.

Probably me, I'm always advocating biostrip. I got some metal minis soaking in it right now, after I decided it actually does a better job than even Nitromors. The fact that it doesn't smell or burn your skin just makes life so much easier.

One thing I've found with Biostrip is, depending on the paint used, it will either loose the paint as a solid layer and do a really awesome job, stripping the mini back to new in under an hour, or it will disolve the paint into gunk, which is when you get into difficulties. You can usually scrub most of it off, but it gunks up your toothbrush and you end up spreading it around. I'd really like to find a good solution for when that happens (something better than water to rinse in probably). Though I did leave some problem genestealers soaking in it for about 5 days, and when I took them out there just wasn't any paint left to scrub off. So I think you can always (99% of the time) get a miniature back to "new looking", but not always inside an hour. It depends on the paint.

On the subject of scrubbing. What I did was bought a hard toothbrush, and then clipped the bristles down so they are only 2-3mm long. That's really good for getting in details, as the bristles are too short to flop about.

I've used it a few times and it does pretty well.However!
1) The more detail and recesses the model has the more dipping and scrubbing you will have to do;I should know after stripping nearly 300 marines at one go!
2) It will take the skin of your fingers and make the tips all shiny and smooth to the point where you will not be able to hold anything for at least week because you can't grip anything!

Slipstream wrote:
2) It will take the skin of your fingers and make the tips all shiny and smooth to the point where you will not be able to hold anything for at least week because you can't grip anything!

You must have had your hands in it a long time to have that happen? It will certainly dry out your skin if you don't wear gloves, but it's not like Nitromors that burns on contact, or dettol, which just stings like a B!