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And this is the tale of my first attempt. With lots of pictures.

I have started buying second hand models. My interest in Warmachine has coincided with a tremendous sell-off of many previous players' collections, and I've been getting it dirt cheap. I'm also collecting a variety of Kill Teams, which I'm purchasing second hand as well. I'd like to make a Salamander kill team from some old Red Marines that I have, so I'm thinking of stripping some of them too. So I gathered a handful of minis to see how they'd react.

From left to right, a Metal Scout, primed black. A Chaos Marine that came from a second-hand store that my wife spotted. A Guardsman from my "dipping in wood stain" phase. Missing his plasmagun, I think. In the back is another 2nd hand store find. The big shiny guy in the middle is a Warmachine Sentinel Hero-thing. It's an elf, with lots of armour. I think it was physically dipped in high-gloss varnish. I'm not sure this will work for him. To his right is another metal elf, a "Souless". The elves have it rough in the WMH world. Beside that, is a Dwarf from the Wizards of the Coast D&D pre-painted mini line. It's a very soft plastic. I'm not sure if it will survive the Ultrasonic. I may have a dark puddle of mush in the bottom. Another Chaos Marine and lastly a Warhammer Wych Elf hero... I think. It's a lot of years old, and a project that ended when it just didn't look right, at all.





Stripping has, for me, been a tedious process taking a long time to get anywhere, and you've got to scrub and scrub and scrub. And I don't want no scrub. A scrub is a process that can't get no love from me. So I went to the 'Zon and bought a Magnasonic cleaner, model UC71. 850 ml capacity.




This is my kitchen table, with stuff on it. Models shown for scale.




I decided to actually read the manual. Here are my thoughts on selected sections.










The special sauce in my recipe. The secret ingredient is nearly pure alcohol!




Foi! (Pronounced, F-oy!) That is a spicy meatball. Do not breath that in, it has got to be bad for you. But then again, if you have a chest infection then maybe breathing it in could help? It kills bacteria on your skin... so I assume it would help, but you should probably consult someone that won't be amused by watching you try it and pass out.

So, models in the tub, fill er up, we're ready to start!




5 mins in. Might be feeling a bit woozy, world is tilting to the right.




10 mins in. Fresh air is helping.




15 mins in. Fresh air is NOT helping.




20 mins in. May have plateau'd. Interest in functions of my fingers is increasing. Family doesn't understand me. Must resolve conflicts...




I pulled the minis out to take a look at what's going on. The paint seems softer, but not really coming away from the models well. It's time to go to my Sister-in-law-some's for dinner with the extended family. Putting the models back in the tub to soak while I'm gone.




4 hours later, and another 10 minute cleaning cycle, I've pulled the minis out again. Some are starting to peel paint off, others are missing patches. The witch elf looks like her skin is sagging off, that's gross. The metal models are mostly clean except for the Scout, which is weird. I decide the paint is really soft. Like, slides off under my fingers so I'm getting a toothbrush to try a quick scrub... though it shall still get no love from me.




And ta-daah! A quick scrub and they're looking great! Just so you know, if you scrub the models in the tub, you'll fling tiny alcohol molecules about, and that's probably bad for your health and warm alcohol smells up the room pretty quick. Foi! The witch elf has a near mirror finish. That's cleaner than when I bought her. The rest are in primable condition. I'm surprised at how easily the paint comes off, even from in crevices. I remember having to soak things for days and still scrub the crap out of them to get even close to this.

Neither the Scout nor the Dwarf let go of their paint. Since I didn't paint them, I'm wondering if maybe they're an enamel paint? I wouldn't be surprised if the scout was primed with automotive primer. I don't know what the dwarf was painted with, but that paint has BITE! I can't scratch the metal off the armour. I think the Chaos marines must have had their grass attached with super glue, I can't crack that off with a pair of pliers.

Interesting side note... the soft plastic of the dwarf is much stiffer now. Might be the alcohol, might be the ultrasonic. Will have to experiment with water next time and a different model to find out.

I strained the alcohol through a coffee filter, to see if I can reuse it. The good stuff is expensive, you know. I went through three coffee filters. They kept plugging but recovered about 470 ml, I'd guess? I lost about an ounce, I figure. It still looks like dirty river water, even after settling for a day now.

Next try will be with water... stupid instructions probably knowing what they're talking about.



Compared to




In conclusion, I have a lot of second hand models to strip, and I'm very pleased with the results I got. This cleaner has room for about 10 minis of "standard" size. I don't think I'd want to try a vehicle, though I might be able to do a half-rhino at a time, then flip it over to do the other half. I'm not in a rush to try that.

I'm holding off on giving it an immediate positive recommendation, until I've had a chance to try with tap water. If that works? Sold. Er, sold on recommending. I've already bought it. I'll try the tap water next weekend.

Hope you had fun!

Nice man. Might come off easier if you used scrubbed and soaked in some thing like simple green first for a couple of days. Then when you use that machine might take whats left off easily, not sure though.


For e.g, i got these stripped to where they were in this picture just soaking in strip chemicals for a day and heaps of scrubbing, maybe a machine like yours after i had done that would get the rest of the hard to get at bits easy.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh i didn't see your other photo showing you had cleaned most of paint off, my bad.

That amount of text alone shows me that it's not worth getting that gadget to strip miniatures.

I find a brief bath in a proper stipping solution (Super Clean) hastens stripping tremendously (just water in the Ultrasonic). How long that bath should last depends on how many layers of paint and varnish you have, but it's a one-two punch and pretty much eliminates the need to take a toothbrush to the mini.

Yesterday I soaked a mini with 2 layers of paint over primer (failed experimental paint job) for about 4 hours in used Super Clean, and it only took 4 minutes in the ultrasonic to get down to bare plastic with just hints of primer remaining.

My cheaper, less convoluted stripping method is this:

It has god-like levels of power. It will rip the flesh from your bones though so wear gloves. A 2 hour bath should do anything but a testors paint job.

For the UK crowd, I hear dettol spray is the way to go?

We dotn get superclean here or any amonia based chemicals.

Biostrip 20 is way better than Dettol. Dettol stinks and has to be rinsed with Dettol. Biostrip is environmentally friendly and washed off with water. Easily available via Amazon.

FWIW my ultrasonic cleaner seemed to do virtually nothing, and I still had to use a toothbrush whatever cleaner I used. It didn’t make the paint just fall away as I’d hoped.

To be fair, I still had to do a quick scrub with the tooth brush, but it all came away very easily, no hard scrubbing. The recesses came clean too, which I found hard to make happen with just soaking in Alcohol or Brake Fluid.

For $40 CAD, I am quite pleased, and intend to try "just" water this coming weekend. I'll post an update after I have a chance to give that a try.

Waiting to see how water only compares...

How much did the machine run you?

$40 CAD, or about $30 USD.

If it works as well with plain water, or cheaper, lower concentration alcohol I'll consider it money well spent. The near-pure alcohol is quite expensive. I wasn't joking about the medical grade.

Less than the cost of a box of models, and I've been picking up models at 33% cost sometimes, so the savings vs buying new and not having to "fight" with stripping will be great.

Plus, I keep looking at my Red Marines and thinking how much better I'd like them if they were Green... With Dragon-Heads all over them. That Damned Vulkan He'Stan model with his big power spear. The temptation grows.

I'd be keen to see how just soaking them in iso would have gone as a control. 4 hours should have done it.

Additionally, and anecdotally, I've seen people PREFER 70% iso for stripping as it "works better because science"

I've not tested that though.

Re: biostrip, Americans can get Krud Kutter graffiti removal and uk bros can use the cheaper wilkos paint and varnish remover - same stuff

Have you tried it with enamel-on-plastic models? I’m thinking of getting one for this problem.

Hi Tikay,

I have not *specifically* tried, but I have my doubts about alcohol and Enamel.

If you check out the Sniper Scout and the Dwarf model, I suspect these were not painted with Acrylic, as the paint did not come off. If you look at the 2nd last picture (Starts with SNAP!) you can see the Sniper and Dwarf's paint did not seem to come off at all.

The Dwarf does not appear to have been primered. The Material is black (softish) plastic. So even without primer, the paint did not come off.

They Witch Elf and Guardsman were models I painted. WE was primed with Citadel Black, and the Guardsman was primed with Citadel White. Both came clean, and they were with Acrylic primer.

Long story longer... I would be suspicious about Enamel, but I never use that so I don't *knowingly* have anything to test.

Maybe google, "What type of paint are Wizard's D&D minis painted with?". You might get a useful answer. *shrug* That paint does NOT come off.

I'm afraid most of you here are using a ultrasonic cleaner wrong. It's also quite unfortunate your ultrasonic cleaner instructions didn't come with proper instructions. It seems to be a common problem where the manufacturers are not telling you how to properly use it.

In order for ultrasonic cleaner to work properly, you must suspend the object within the solvent so it will not touch the tub. Ultrasonic cleaners work by creating micro 'implosions' within the liquid which serves as the 'abrasive'. When your model is touching the tub/primary element which transmits the vibration to the liquid, you are impeding this process by allowing the vibrations to be absorbed into the object you are trying to clean. You want the liquid to vibrate, not the object.

@ Skchsan:

The instructions with my machine, as pictured in the OP, state that using the included basket reduces power by 30%.

My models came quite clean, aside from the 2 that had no change.

On my machine, for example, the basket sits on the tub. Would that not just transfer the vibrations from tub to basket to model, instead of tub to model directly?

I can say from experience that the cheap domestic ultrasonic cleaners will work without the basket, but they will also damage older metal models.

I think putting alcohol in an ultrasonic is a fire hazard, because of the flammable vapour it produces. Not sure, but be careful with that.

Personally, I'd use cellulose thinners for metal models https://youtu.be/MUaN_s5-pGs and biostrip 20 or the unbranded equivalent for plastic.

Nobody smokes (inside the house or where the kids can see me) so I’m not too worried about my particular model generating enough heat / vapour concentration for ignition... but a good safety point.

Though my inner hill-William may consider that to be a survival challenge sort of thing, and worth experimenting.

 greatbigtree wrote:
@ Skchsan:

The instructions with my machine, as pictured in the OP, state that using the included basket reduces power by 30%.

My models came quite clean, aside from the 2 that had no change.

On my machine, for example, the basket sits on the tub. Would that not just transfer the vibrations from tub to basket to model, instead of tub to model directly?

Any contact with the tub itself reduces performance. Right now, what's happening is tub to basket to model + solvent. For optimal results you want strictly tub to solvent.

As explained before, it's the liquid you want to vibrate, not the model. Otherwise, it's no different than a simple tumbler.

Tikay Fortooun wrote:Have you tried it with enamel-on-plastic models? I’m thinking of getting one for this problem.

I have.

I don't have 'after' pics but I got an ebay lot of Spehss Mahreens and more than a few were crusted with blue and yellow enamel.



Vot tak.

It took a few goes, but it all came off in the end.

I would be very interested in seeing the effects of an ultrasonic cleaning *after* an overnight soak in simple green, maybe even using SG as the liquid in the unit

Turns out I was busier than I’d hoped, but on the plus side had a game of 40k this past weekend instead.

I plan to do the “water only” experiment this weekend, as I should be less busy.