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Yaho

Two bits of trivia to share with y'all based on recent experience:

A. During a pack & stack, I uncovered a dettol soaking box i'd left alone with a Rhino which, following a check of my ebay receipts, had been there for 5 years. I can confidently state that dettol has no negative effects on GW plastic over this time period. I can't speak to the paint as i'm not sure it was GW Paint, but it had dissolved to the point that the base of the container was solid sludge.

2. In other news, I put some fresh dettol and nearly clean models ( i use two step stripping) into a new ultrasonic cleaner to put it through its paces, having come up on a much weaker model. This one had a temperature guage/heater element which, seeing how 'hot' dettol was really effective in the old one I figured i'd experiment. I can say with confidence that using an ultrasonic cleaner on GW plastics over 50 degrees produces, effectively, nurgles rot on the plastic - cavitation bubles can be seen in the plastic itself - and causes it to melt together. This information cost me an onager dune crawler and some heraldic plates from an armiger. I'm wary of going over 30 degrees and as you can imagine have yet to experiment.

This is not to say that dettol + ultrasonic is inately bad - I've got better results on metal models than I did with acetone, and standard plastics are ready for very easy scrubbing in half an hour instead of a day.

Happy stripping

Even without a heating element, ultrasonics naturally create heat. I ran my so many times in one painting sitting (mine only runs for 3 minutes at a time, so I tape the button everytime it turns off) that I melted the plastic jewelry basket that I was holding the bits in...

So, yeah. You learn some stuff as you practice this stuff.

Yup, heat is created as a byproduct in an ultrasonic cleaner (as the bubbles collapse they give off energy) along with other short radiation bursts (as well as the infra/near infra-red there's also a UV burst).

Fantastic to know about the 5 years part. I've had some of my oldest models soaking in dettol for around 4 months now and was getting worried, as they have nostalgic value to me.

I've had some metal models in dettol for at least 3 or 4 years as well - no ill effect (save needing a second wash to try and get the smell off them). The paint came off really well too.

I would say its less the ultra sonic cleaner and more the heat. What the bubbles then did to the soft plastic is a result of the plastic being soft. Not the bubbles themselves.

Forgive my ignorance, but those who are knowingly soaking their models for months or years at a time - what's the reasoning? For preservation?

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, but those who are knowingly soaking their models for months or years at a time - what's the reasoning? For preservation?

I assume they forgot about them for various reasons, or moved on to other projects. But if not, then yeah i agree what is the reason lol?

Storm.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, but those who are knowingly soaking their models for months or years at a time - what's the reasoning? For preservation?

Well in my case, I have had the final final exams and dissertation for my university degree (graduating in 3 weeks!), plus househunting with my girlfriend, trips to see my family and see the Champion's League final, and now a 9-5 job. Quite frankly, its purely been about time to do it.

 chromedog wrote:
Yup, heat is created as a byproduct in an ultrasonic cleaner (as the bubbles collapse they give off energy) along with other short radiation bursts (as well as the infra/near infra-red there's also a UV burst).

Sigh...

It's the electrical components that generates the vibration that's responsible for the heat in non-heated ultrasonic cleaners (like how a computer heats up).

The byproduct heat from bubbles is negligible as far as heating the solution goes - heat exchange between the air and the solution is more likely to change the temperature of the solution than the bubbles themselves generating enough heat to heat up the solution. To add, it's not the "collapsing" action of the bubbles that generate heat - the heat is from the vibration of the molecules (comprising the solution), facilitated by the vibrating tub. You can raise the temperature of an object by rapidly vibrating it, just as you can increase an object's molecular velocity by raising it's temperature.

There are no radiations involved in ultrasonic cleaning, at least in the sense you're implying (ultrasonic is radiation, just as much as sunlight is a radiation) - according to your theory, then you can potentially tan yourself by leaving your hand near an ultrasonic cleaner long enough - which is absolutely not true.

Please stop giving out false information, and please do research before giving out any "insights".

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, but those who are knowingly soaking their models for months or years at a time - what's the reasoning? For preservation?

The longer you leave models to soak the better the paint comes off, but there is a limit point and once you're into months and years you've likely gone beyond any visible difference in performance.
In my case I put the models in the jar, put the lid on and forgot about it/procrastinated and then didn't want to do the army any more so left them. Since there was no pressure to have the models ready and since the dettol doesn't cause any harm to them (mine were all metal), there was no pressure to remove them. So they remained in the jar until such time as I wanted them.

At a technical standpoint, heating up the solution used in ultrasonic cleaning doesn't make the solution "harsher" per se, but rather, it helps loosen up the thing you are trying to clean (Think soaking your pan of the food residues with hot water vs cold water).

What essentially happened for the OP is that he essentially sous vide'd the rhino. Most likely, the plastic itself went through some form of corrosion due to sitting in a heated tank for a prolonged period of time.

 Wyrmalla wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, but those who are knowingly soaking their models for months or years at a time - what's the reasoning? For preservation?

I genuinely forgot I had the thing; it was a serious rescue project (and without the paint it turned out worse that I realised) so it went on the back burner.