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Simple question: all Dettol stripping guides say to use it straight from the bottle, but I can't afford a lot of Dettol and have a lot of minis to strip, so can I thin it down? And if so what should I thin it with and at what ratio?

Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks guys.

I thinned mine with a little bit of water, a lot of water actually, and it worked just fine. Probably 75-25 water mix.

Ymmv though.

Last time I thinned dettol with water, it turned the paint to sticky sludgy mess instead and made it harder to remove.
That said, I can't stand the smell of the stuff and we don't have any in the house (we have betadine and saline for wound cleaning and disinfecting).

Oh, and WEAR protective glasses or goggles - you DO NOT want this stuff in your eyes, dilute OR neat.

(and gloves if using it neat. The stuff will strip oils from your skin AND give you a chemical burn in the undiluted state)

I wouldn't thin it, just do a lot of small batches

You don't need to ditch it every time, just fish the models out.

Also leave it to stand for a day or two and a lot of the paint settles out, so you can carefully decant off clean fluid and leave the dregs. I use an old pyrex jug, it's robust, easy to clean out and makes pouring off straight forward.

Can you get isopropyl alcohol (IPA) cheaper than Dettol? I was under the impression the thing in Dettol that strips paint was just IPA anyway.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Can you get isopropyl alcohol (IPA) cheaper than Dettol? I was under the impression the thing in Dettol that strips paint was just IPA anyway.

thats what i thought too. And when it is mixed with water it kinda loses its purpose.

Hi there I have recently stripped some marines and I go with a 3;1 mix and it works really well. It's slower due to it being diluted but it saves alot of dettol. My technique is too leave the minis in the solution over night then the next morning scrub 'em down then put them back in for another night and repeat the same thing this should remove 90% of the paint. Another tip is too never ever dip the minis in water after being stripped and they are still wet with dettol as the water combines with any remaining paint and creates a horrible gloopy mixture that is a pain to remove.

I didn't thinned mine but then again i forgot that i left the SoB in the bowl in the wood shed outside... When I remembered the pain had gone to such a sludge quality i had to redo the entire process! My fault entirely