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 gunslingerpro wrote:


Eh, I've had almost 100% success rate with Super Clean.

Spoiler:

I've tried that also with great results. I'm not sure there's much if any difference between it and purple power. IIRC, I used it first and switched to purple at the suggestion of the auto parts clerk, and b/c purple was just a bit cheaper.

Last time I checked, I think Superclean also has the 2 butoxethanol ingredient that Purple has and Simple Green used to.

 TheKbob wrote:
Depends on the primer. Not a materials expert, but certain primers mixed with the more porous surface of plastics can make removal of paint extremely difficult.

I've had some that the primer didn't want to come off completely, but haven't had any issues with the paint layers. And that's good enough for me... Unless you're painting for Golden Demon, a little bit of primer left over isn't going to affect the paint job enough to matter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

We wrote:
With metal, worst case scenario I drop them in brake fluid or acetone and boom, bare to the metal and no damage to the metal. You can't do that with plastic.

I used to use brake fluid for plastics before I found simple green. Some will eat plastic, some won't.

Before that I used oven cleaner... there was one specific brand here in Oz that stripped like a treat without affecting the plastics (every other one I tried either didn't work at all or melted the mini) but they changed the formula and it stopped working... :(

Haven't read all of the thread, but a number of things changed over time.

Resin and metal have been comparable in the past - both allow fine detail and cheaper moulds. So they are great for individual models that need a lot of detail.

Plastic is very expensive to make the mould, but the material is cheaper. So it's a great way of making high volume models that will sell well.

Over time, metal prices have been volatile, whilst GW plastic has improved massively. There seems to be a gradual shift to plastic, with many new characters now being in plastic.

Finecast is a substitute for metal. The "hate" is more than typical anti-GW hate. It really was terrible, required a lot of post-purchase work, had bubbles, mould lines etc. I recall an online retailer refused to stock Finecast for a while, after an in-house QC showed lots of poor quality. I understand it has improved over time.

Personally, I can't stand it. I'm an amateur modeller so prefer forgiving materials. Metal is resilient and doesn't warp in storage. Plastic is similar, and is also easy to cut and reposition. Resin is brittle and warps. I'll moan about GW like anyone else, and then carry on playing, but I haven't bought a F/C model since shortly after they were introduced.

Still terrible.

Also, metal doesn't have the be the domain of figures you might only buy one or two of. You can still get the benefits of mass production to some degree when it comes to spin cast. And there are still quite a few companies making metal miniatures that will be the rank and file guys, especially in historicals. GW grew to be an international company off the sales of mass produced metal models with a smattering of plastic kits. It wasn't until the late 90s that they really developed their plastic technology.

Artizan Designs, for example, still sells 28mm metals for £5.60 for 4 and they're not even necessarily a budget option like Old Glory. I just mention Artizan because their sculpting style fits with GW stuff.

 frozenwastes wrote:
Also, metal doesn't have the be the domain of figures you might only buy one or two of. You can still get the benefits of mass production to some degree when it comes to spin cast. And there are still quite a few companies making metal miniatures that will be the rank and file guys, especially in historicals. GW grew to be an international company off the sales of mass produced metal models with a smattering of plastic kits. It wasn't until the late 90s that they really developed their plastic technology.

Artizan Designs, for example, still sells 28mm metals for £5.60 for 4 and they're not even necessarily a budget option like Old Glory. I just mention Artizan because their sculpting style fits with GW stuff.

Spoiler:

That's very true. There are lots of companies selling metal for large historical armies, and lots of historical players who still prefer metal.

Some of the companies with low cost metal options are benefit from older figures (lack of need to sculpt too many new ones) or smaller figures (25 and not-as-heroic 28mm) but some companies are producing metal 28mm figures and selling them for considerably less than GW plastic boxes.

As an example, Look at the West Wind Dwarf Wars figs that Old Glory sells in the USA. Units of full size heroic 28mm-30mm fantasy figs, with quite a bit of variation of sculpts for less than $2 a fig,(24 for $46)or as low as low as $1.15 each when you sign up for their membership and pay $50 a year for 40% off everything!
http://www.oldgloryminiatures.com/categories.asp?cat=43
If I didn't already have an armies worth of Essex WotRoses miniatures waiting for paint, I'd be buying a Nordvolk army.

Yeah, if I ever did an elf army for fantasy gaming, I'd totally go for their stuff. Old Glory has some solid sculpts and some that are less great, but their stuff that West Wind produced are all solid.

 insaniak wrote:


I used to use brake fluid for plastics before I found simple green. Some will eat plastic, some won't.

I still do use brake fluid (technically 'brake and transmission fluid dot3') on metals or plastics. I don't soak for more than half an hour and I've not noticed ANY damage to styrene plastics (Now resins are a different matter. PU tend to soften permanently. Acrylic resins seem fine, and epoxy resins likewise. ).

Gets even etching primer off plastics (except in deep grooves) but you can use fine pointy probes to scrape the crud out.

I tend to end up with really dodgy paints of metal figures when I get 2nd hand stuff. Stuff painted in enamels using a trowel. In my experience, SG struggled with enamels. Brake fluid didn't care - enamel, acrylic, auto lacquer - it ALL comes off.

I've been using it for about 15 years. I tend to buy a bottle every couple of years (about 500ml) and reuse it until it loses efficacy - goes a yellowy-green - by filtering out the paint crud.
The paint crud and filter go into the garbage. The used fluid goes into a local mechanic's waste drum that he gets picked up for disposal.

 chromedog wrote:
I still do use brake fluid (technically 'brake and transmission fluid dot3') on metals or plastics. I don't soak for more than half an hour and I've not noticed ANY damage to styrene plastics (Now resins are a different matter. PU tend to soften permanently. Acrylic resins seem fine, and epoxy resins likewise. ).

The stuff I used to use (also a Dot3), I had a bunch of 2nd ed plastics floating in it for about 3 months with no ill effects.

In my experience, SG struggled with enamels. Brake fluid didn't care - enamel, acrylic, auto lacquer - it ALL comes off..

It did a pretty good job on glue as well.


I only stopped using brake fluid when I started reading about how nasty it was. While I wore gloves and tended not to drink the stuff, Simple Green was still much more pleasant to work with.

I was never impressed by Simple Green. Takes too long to take effect, and didn't even get through primer.

I currently use Easy Off oven cleaner. Doesn't damage plastics, and will strip a model bare in about 3 hours.

No mention of dettol yet? Probably not the best, but it works 100% 80% of the time!

For those in US and Canada: L.A.'s Totally Awesome cleaner

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/365067.page

In Canada, it is carried at Dollar Tree locations.

Metal is nice just plastic gives ability to build larger multi part, and pose sets.

Though I have some old metal, 1980,s stuff. and it was a joy to paint! :-)

 Yonan wrote:
No mention of dettol yet? Probably not the best, but it works 100% 80% of the time!

Lol. I used to use dettol. In fact I just cleared out a tub of minis that've been sitting in dettol for a couple of years. Compared to the other minis I also just tackled, that've been sitting in a half-jar of fairy power spray for a few weeks, FPS still wins.

If you have even a drop of water in Dettol it's paint stripping effects are considerably lessened.

Straight from the bottle and into a clean pot and it will strip paint and primer quite quickly. If you want to reuse it, take the models out and don't be tempted to dip your scrubbing brush in it. Once it is even slightly cloud dispose of it.

When dettol is cloudy it only seems to make paint gummy which will make it stick in recesses and generally foul up your cleaning brush.

I dont actually buy the whole "less detail in plastic" thing me.

My favorite models of the last few years were all in plastic, surely that argument is not sound anymore?

Space Hulk, Chaos chosen, and ltd edition Chaplain from DV surely proved the point? They are fething brilliant models, and they have all the detail you could want.

To be fair those models are twice the size of Infinity models but who cares about detail in wargame figures anyway?

 Kilkrazy wrote:
To be fair those models are twice the size of Infinity models but who cares about detail in wargame figures anyway?

I don't play Infinity, but it's 28mm as well right?

Point is GW plastics are fine, I haven't ever noticed any discernible difference in detail between a plastic figure and a resin one regardless of the model, the plastic guardsmen look great as well.

It's 28mm realistic humans not 28mm GW heroic Space Mariens. The bulk size of the models is at least half, with reduced surface area to hold detail but the detail on the Infinity figures is just as good as GW.

But who cares? They are 28mm wargame models, not display pieces.

 mattyrm wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
To be fair those models are twice the size of Infinity models but who cares about detail in wargame figures anyway?

I don't play Infinity, but it's 28mm as well right?

Point is GW plastics are fine, I haven't ever noticed any discernible difference in detail between a plastic figure and a resin one regardless of the model, the plastic guardsmen look great as well.

I suppose it depends what you want in a miniature, and also levels of detail suit different styles of game and miniature.

I read one of the Corvus Belli sculptors reckoned that something like 60% of their miniature range wouldn't be possible in plastic. Not just to do with delicacy of the sculpt but also practical considerations of how moulds work, resin and metal can give much more of a blank canvas for the sculptor to work with. The level of detail on some of the miniatures is fething mental, to the point where sometimes my shoulders drop when I come to painting a new miniature, and I look over at my Warlord plastic Romans longingly..

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's 28mm realistic humans not 28mm GW heroic Space Mariens. The bulk size of the models is at least half, with reduced surface area to hold detail but the detail on the Infinity figures is just as good as GW.

But who cares? They are 28mm wargame models, not display pieces.

Yeah like I said, I don't see it being an issue, perhaps it is a relic of older days when metals really were easier to detail and plastic minis were the sort of detail you used to get on those plastic army figures you played with as a kid.

Actually, that might be right, I remember when I was a little kid my mum used to buy me these totally awesome metal soldiers, I think they were actually called "Britain" toys, I remember her telling me to keep them all because they would be worth something in the future. They were like a quid fifty in 1987 so, they were pretty dear. I think I had about 40 or 50 in the end, and my mates used to be amazed at how much better they were than those gakky all green plastic ones we used to get a tub full of for about a pound.

Needless to say, they all got threw out anyway.

But anyway yeah I agree, I don't believe for a second that the difference is discernible at 28mm, even if they are smaller and less bulky than the Chosen for example, even small models are more than adequately rendered in plastic as far as I can tell. I don't know what GWs smallest plastic is, but I cant see it being visibly worse than a resin or metal version. As you say, your eyeballs probably cant tell from more than a foot away anyway.

notprop wrote:If you have even a drop of water in Dettol it's paint stripping effects are considerably lessened.

If you have even a drop of water in fairy power spray it's paint stripping effects... aren't.

mattyrm wrote:I dont actually buy the whole "less detail in plastic" thing me.

My favorite models of the last few years were all in plastic, surely that argument is not sound anymore?

Can't help noticing they're all GW models. Have you seen or handled anything else since the Britains soldiers disappeared?

 mattyrm wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's 28mm realistic humans not 28mm GW heroic Space Mariens. The bulk size of the models is at least half, with reduced surface area to hold detail but the detail on the Infinity figures is just as good as GW.

But who cares? They are 28mm wargame models, not display pieces.

Yeah like I said, I don't see it being an issue, perhaps it is a relic of older days when metals really were easier to detail and plastic minis were the sort of detail you used to get on those plastic army figures you played with as a kid.

Having worked with both GW metal, plastic and FW resin, and then Infinity metals, nothing GW produces either through themselves or Forgeworld is even close to the detail level of an Infinity model. GW stuff is extremely exaggerated, which makes it quite easy to paint. Infinity models frequently have details I find myself dropping to a 000 sized brush for, and then details I have trouble actually seeing (due to an astigmatism). The detail difference between GWs and Corvus Bellis models really are night and day, though it's due mostly to the model scaling (40k is closer to 32mm these days, with very exaggerated features, while Infinity is 25mm realistcally scaled - a Guardsman next to an Infinity model looks like someone suffering from gigantism).

The main problem with GW's 'detail' these days is it's really just clutter. Throw as much needless extras on a model as you possibly can and call it detail, instead of just making a clean sculpt with sharp details.

 mattyrm wrote:
Space Hulk, Chaos chosen, and ltd edition Chaplain from DV surely proved the point? They are fething brilliant models, and they have all the detail you could want.

I agree. Plus who'd want this in metal? Or this?

Slaanesh would have fits of ecstacy at the thought of those in metal.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:
Space Hulk, Chaos chosen, and ltd edition Chaplain from DV surely proved the point? They are fething brilliant models, and they have all the detail you could want.

I agree. Plus who'd want this in metal? Or this?

I don't think I've seen that first one before, but feth me I don't think it would even go together!

Plus, It would probably weight about 5 stone, you would need arms like Garth to get it to the fething game game store!

To be fair, Infinity models could very well be used as display pieces. And I think the best sculpts in the industry right now would go to them. If they make a Fantasy Range I would pledge my soul to Corvus Belli and they shall have my first born as offering to the Crow of War.

With regards to detail on metal/resin versus plastic, most metals I've wroked with (mainly Infinity ones) holds more detail than the plastics I've worked with (including the ones mentioned by mattrym). But that doesn't mean that they're better models: but they are better at holding tiny details (from the ones I've worked so far). The plastics that holds a lot of detail that I've worked on so far is.... Mantic's Zombies, I think. All those gore and intestines and bones and fingers. Would've been fun to paint if I didn't have to paint 30 of them.

Horses for courses.
Technically, metals can be finer detailed than plastic, but are undoubtedly harder to assemble and unsuitable for certain poses.

However, for a mass battle game, why do you want micron level details on rank and file? It'd just drive you mad painting it. Simple designs work fine en masse.