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Does anyone know the actual chemicals FW use for their mold release and resin compounds? I'm sick of this "let it sit in soapy water for 3 months while scrubbing and chanting "Hare Krishna" for a further year while also meditating about the greater social consequences of civil war" crap. I want to know exactly what they use so I can tailor a chemical removal that will kick the ever loving gak out of that stupid stuff and let me get along with painting it.

Anyone?

Edit: Typo blehh.

Forgeworld website was useful:

"Resin is a wide range of castable synthetic plastic-type materials." Excellent.

Soaking in the blood of an unborn Yak has been rumoured to be effective also.

Note that if your resin is very shiny & feels a bit greasy to the touch then the problem isn't release agent - it's because they didn't mix the resin correctly & it hasn't cured. It's happened to me & didn't realise what the problem was at first. I used a brass wire pen to clean the model & it worked. My new solution? Phone FW & get them to send out replacement parts. No fuss, no muss.

Ya - crappy miscasts are in some ways faster to deal with, because they'll express ship replacements. They have a terrible QC process though - I guess it's cheaper to just send it out regardless and replace if required than it is to actually have quality control...

It's the bloody mold release I want to deal with though... Grrr...

I tend to give them a scrub with a toothbrush dipped in methylated spirits or isopropyl alcohol (rubbing alcohol) and it seems to cut through the shiny mould release.

(I don't "soak" the pieces in it, just scrub. Wear gloves, because this stuff will dehydrate your skin).

What I'm looking for is a no-scrub, no-feth-around solution. The stuff is ridiculously expensive, the last thing I want to be doing is faffing about scrubbing stuff. This also doesn't work for deep cracks and inset parts very well, which is where the stuff will congregate.

Pure chemical solution is what I'm after; I can deal with a <1 hour soak time followed by a rinse and dry.

My brother is an industrial chemist. He assures me that if we can identify the product, we can find something perfectly tailored to obliterate it safely.

If Simple Green is available to you, i've never yet had a problem after soaking the resin in it for a few minutes and then rinsing.

The release agent they use is going to require scrubbing of some sort. It's part of the process. It sticks to the resin preventing the resin sticking to the moulds.

Try emailing FW and ASKING THEM for the MSDS on their release agent, then.

Try spraying on some isopropyl alchol.. (better yet painters panel wipe and degreaser), and then blasting it dry with compressed air.
You cna get degreasing guns..but theyre kinda for cleaning engines perhaps a bit large scale... so I suggest buying a well cheap airbrush to be a degreaser gun.

Or google "release agents" and see what is commonly in them.

For example, here is the msds for one a common silicon;

http://www.smooth-on.com/msds/files/ER200.pdf
or
http://complyplus.grainger.com/grainger/loadmsds.asp?id=22N698

Several are either
Dimethyl Ether
CAS Number: 115-10-6
EINECS Number: 204-065-8

or
DIMETHYLPOLYSILOXANE combined with
DIMETHYL ETHER

I am guessing they are using what ever is cheapest in the china production plants (which might be using something even cheaper than they spec - its common).

Overall however, this sounds like a lot of work compared to the simple green soak.....

For me the problem with FW models is not the release agent - its the massive warping and poor quality molds on the bigger models (many of the tau molds are deformed or have shrunk) ....but that is a different topic.

Simple Green works very well to remove the release agent all by itself. I usually give them a quick scrub with a toothbrush too, then rinse and let dry.

 chromedog wrote:
The release agent they use is going to require scrubbing of some sort. It's part of the process. It sticks to the resin preventing the resin sticking to the moulds.

Try emailing FW and ASKING THEM for the MSDS on their release agent, then.

Tried that - they haven't returned my email yet but hey, they still might.

I don't know exactly what it is, but it must be hydrocarbon based, since you can remove it with liquid soap and water but not just water.