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Hello all,

Well i'm back to painting miniatures after a 28 year break (yikes)

I've managed to buy some metal models on e-bay, however some are glued, some painted some primed.

What is the best way to gently remove the Paint.

Also the glue, which I think is Superglue from the look and feel.

Many thanks

Welcome back.
You've really got 2 choices for removing paint;
1) Acetone free nail varnish remover (Superdrug)
2) Dettol.
Both are and will be very effective on metal figues/you will have a little paint residue to remove which can be done with a knife or needle files.
Both chemicals have drawbacks;
Dettol is very strong and the fumes can be dangerous.To get the best effect with it you need to use it undiluted. Also wear gloves because it will strip the skin off your fingers!
Acetone free nail varnish remover does have a scented smell to it but nowhere near as strong as dettol,which will stink your entire house.For days.
Both will also loosen glue.

Methlated sprits is very good , on metal figures you can use more agrressive stuff

Slipstream wrote:
Welcome back.
You've really got 2 choices for removing paint;
1) Acetone free nail varnish remover (Superdrug)
2) Dettol.
Both are and will be very effective on metal figues/you will have a little paint residue to remove which can be done with a knife or needle files.
Both chemicals have drawbacks;
Dettol is very strong and the fumes can be dangerous.To get the best effect with it you need to use it undiluted. Also wear gloves because it will strip the skin off your fingers!
Acetone free nail varnish remover does have a scented smell to it but nowhere near as strong as dettol,which will stink your entire house.For days.
Both will also loosen glue.

I'm yet to find a cheaper acetone free nail varnish remover than Wilkos own. 90p a bottle and it strips metal and plastic (have not tried it on resin)

There's also SuperClean. I'm told it has a similar effect to dettol (though I've never tried dettol myself). Twenty-four hours soaking in straight superclean followed by hot water and gentle brushing will strip metal models perfectly. Forty-eight hours and more enthusiastic brushing is often required for plastic. I've found resin to be somewhere in the middle. It loosens glue pretty well and (from what I've noticed) doesn't stink up the house (though my noes is pretty gak, so who knows).

Thank you all for the advice.

One last thing, is there anything to definitely avoid on plastic models?

Dettol is typically safe on plastics. DO NOT USE ACETONE on plastics! It will melt them into a pile of goo. Superclean, Dettol, and Simple Green are your safest bets.

isopropyl alcohol 91% works great on stripping paint and cause no damage on plastics, though on resin: it could cause them to be rubbery and allow any air bubbles to surface.

Freeze the models to detach super glue.

And also you can use braking fluid. It did not harm metal or plastic parts and it's reusable. Just beware resin models with this method.

And brake fluid is more toxic than most of the other things, so be careful using it.

Recently I've been experimenting with stripping miniatures I painted 25 years ago. Here's what I've found:

70% isopropyl alcohol softens the old acrylic paint a bit and dissolves superglue. Takes a lot of scrubbing and scraping. Not really good enough, but didn't damage plastic.

White spirit melts plastic. Doesn't really strip paint from metal any better than alcohol.

Biostrip 20 will strip all acrylic paint easily (in about an hour), old enamels take a bit longer. Rattle can primers also stripped when left overnight. Doesn't damage plastic. I love this stuff.

WaveyRaven wrote:
Biostrip 20 will strip all acrylic paint easily (in about an hour), old enamels take a bit longer. Rattle can primers also stripped when left overnight. Doesn't damage plastic. I love this stuff.

Seconding this, Biostrip 20 is amazing. I've left it on plastic minis for days without any problems. It also doesn't make your models stink like Dettol, which is a bonus.

I do find that occasionally it will need a second go to get paint of of particularly deep recesses, but that may just be my lazy toothbrushing skills.

Are you fellers spraying the Biostrip 20 on or immersing models in?

I've used Dettol for many years and always found it to be effective on Acrylic paints applied to Metal, Plastic and FW resin with no harm to the minis. It does smell of disinfectant though, so latex gloves are a must....and I usually wait until its a nice day so I can work in the garden.

I used to use Nitromors (until they changed the formula) on metal minis as it would strip enamels paint in minutes (and skin/flesh) as it was toxic as sin. Don't use Nitromors!

I've used Fairy Power Spray on metal models, not sure what its like on resin or plastics though.

Takes off the paint, with some scrubbing, not so sure about the superglue, the model fell apart, but I had to scrape off the glue blobs.

 notprop wrote:
Are you fellers spraying the Biostrip 20 on or immersing models in?

...

I have a tub of Biostrip 20, not the spray version. It's very thick.

I've tried dunking models and putting them aside for a bit. This works very well, but probably wastes some of the stripper, since the model gets a very thick coating.

I've also tried just putting a few models in a plastic tub, pouring on a couple of spoons of stripper, then giving it a stir until the models are coated. This is more economical with the stripper, but it's possible to miss a few nooks and crannys.

 Elbows wrote:
And brake fluid is more toxic than most of the other things, so be careful using it.

You should wear gloves when using neat (undiluted) dettol anyway (and eye protection) as you don't want IT in your eyes, either and it will remove skin in it's out of the bottle form. Dettol is mostly isopropyl alcohol and additives (the anti-bacterial component is a small percentage, as is the eucalyptus, colour and so on).

It's just good procedure to do it for any solvent that isn't water (which is a solvent) anyway. Gloves and eye protection. Remember your PPE. Iso Alcohol in the eyes stings enough (and it strips the lubrication from your eyeballs, which is why it hurts so much). Better to wear the PPE than have to deal with flushing the eyes and applying lubricating drops.