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I'm stripping some enamel paint off old plastics. Is there a certain amount of paint it can strip before losing its potency or ability?

I've found it strips a handful REALLY WELL but if I add more models after I've removed the first say 6 models it leaves bits of paint that won't strip without new Dot 3. I only use small bottles of 200 ml. Should I use more? Less? Is this an average usage?

Are you scrubbing with a toothbrush or just soaking?

Better off really with alcohol, isopropyl or denatured.

Even with acetone, you have to add more because of evaporation, after the alcohol evaporates it's just useless.

Scrubbing with a toothbrush. The first handful get tossed in and left 5-10 min then taken out and lightly scrubbed and they come clean easy peasy. While that's happening the second handful are in and they get 5-10 min then when I scrub those large portions are still covered in paint that scrubbing can't remove.

You can also have two containers. After soaking for awhile in the first, scrub it off, rinse, and soak again in the second. Same idea as having two rinse cups for painting.

Some undercoat stains and cant be removed

 Rybrook wrote:
Some undercoat stains and cant be removed

Ah, I hadn't considered that.

Although this seems to be paint that is still adhering to the model.

I use it twice (but I filter it after the first time to remove any paint crud in it). Paper towel in a funnel. After the 2nd use, which takes longer, it gets poured into a waste drum and taken for disposal at my local mechanic when I have enough of it.

Isopropanol works just as well on acrylics. The alcohol breaks the polymer chains in the "skin" of the paint.
Brake fluid is for shifting the trickier enamels (it takes 2-pack car enamel paint down to bare metal).

 chromedog wrote:
I use it twice (but I filter it after the first time to remove any paint crud in it). Paper towel in a funnel. After the 2nd use, which takes longer, it gets poured into a waste drum and taken for disposal at my local mechanic when I have enough of it.

Isopropanol works just as well on acrylics. The alcohol breaks the polymer chains in the "skin" of the paint.
Brake fluid is for shifting the trickier enamels (it takes 2-pack car enamel paint down to bare metal).

Thanks.

Huh. Of course. I had one bottle of Dot 3 left and only a handful of mini's that still needed stripping. So I threw them in and took a break. What could go wrong on the last batch?

Came back now and it's eaten away at the plastic. (non GW minis). I don't know what was different, I *suspect* lack of an undercoat on these ones. They appeared to be painted straight onto plastic so I think the reaction was way quicker and way more volatile than previous cleans. Quite a bit of the detail on mini's already fairly lacking in detail has been eaten away and then eroded by the brushing. Exact same Dot 3 as previously. I bought a stack of 250ml bottles from the same batch so who knows...

Now that it's over I'm going to use Alcohol from now on. I tried that previously but it didn't work too well so I stopped using it. Fortunately I've done everything I needed to for now.