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Received some Custodes in a trade that are in need of stripping down. I've used methylated spirits from Wilkos in the past and while they worked well, they're a fair bit more expensive than white spirit, and the smell was rather overpowering at times.

I've been looking at various pages about the use of white spirit and I can't see a definitive answer. Some are saying it works wonders, others are saying it'll absolutely ruin the plastic. Alternatively I've tried Dettol in the past, but it's left the models with a horrible film that's damn near impossible to remove fully. The Dettol in general seems a bit too thick to use effectively.

What are Dakka's opinions on white spirit and/or Dettol in regards to the above?

white spirit wont ruin plastic, but it wont strip the paint either, unless its enamel paint.

Dettol will work, but because it contains acetone, it will damage plastic eventually. I believe this would take a long time, but as you've said, its difficult to remove the gunk you get using dettol alone. You can use nail varnish remover to wash the dettol gunk off, but again, this contains acetone and will definitely damage the plastic as you use it.

You can get acetone free NVR, but I have never tried this as I accidentally contaminated the acetone free stuff I bought with regular NVR.

http://realmofchaos80s.blogspot.com/2014/01/how-to-use-dettol-to-best-clean-up.html

This is an article that may be useful to you, although he strips metal miniatures, which are much easier to strip.

I've heard 'simple green' touted as a good product for plastic, but have never tried it myself. I think either this of the acetone free NVR would be your best bets for plastic.

Isopropanol (AKA Isopropyl alcohol or "Rubbing alcohol") is very effective at removing acrylic paint without harming plastic. In normal times it's easy to find in grocery stores, pharmacies, and hardware stores, and very cheap. Might be more difficult or expensive at the moment, though, because it's a common sanitizing and disinfectant product.

I can vouch for isopropyl alcohol too, definitely works well with acrylic paint and in my experience hasn't damaged any plastics.

It's used for cleaning computer parts too, so shops selling that kind of stuff can be a source for it.

You want purple/ methylated spirit. I tried white and all it done was make an oily mess.

Dettol goes all gungy if left to long and leaves a horrid smell.

Oh yeah I forgot IPA.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rybrook wrote:
You want purple/ methylated spirit. I tried white and all it done was make an oily mess.

Dettol goes all gungy if left to long and leaves a horrid smell.

I've heard folk say, but never personally known white spirit to react with acrylic. I use it with oil paints over acrylic all the time. I left some miniatures in a cup of it for months and it did nothing.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
Oh yeah I forgot IPA.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Rybrook wrote:
You want purple/ methylated spirit. I tried white and all it done was make an oily mess.

Dettol goes all gungy if left to long and leaves a horrid smell.

I've heard folk say, but never personally known white spirit to react with acrylic. I use it with oil paints over acrylic all the time. I left some miniatures in a cup of it for months and it did nothing.

Yeah I guess I worded it wrong, it did nothing but leave minis greasy and stinky, as they were white metal I sprayed them with foam oven cleaner in the end to kill the white spirit

White spirit can soften polystyrene with prolonged exposure. But you may only notice it on thin pieces.
It won't necessarily damage fine details, but something like a sword may bend over time.

I had some 0.5mm plasticard bow under it's own weight while using a wash of enamel paint and white spirit left to air-dry.

Probably not the best option.

Another vote for Isopropanol. I have left plastic minis in Isopropanol for weeks, and it does not harm the plastic. I usually soak the minis over night (an hour is probably more than enough..) and use a brush to remove the paint. It takes some more effort to remove the primer, but once the layer of paint over the primer is gone, you can soak the mini again and easily remove the primer as well.

The best thing about iso is it evaporates at room temp and leaves behind no residue (the paint it's dissolving might leave something behind but the iso itself wont).

As others said you can let it soak indefinitely and it won't have any ill effect on the minis. Get an old tooth brush and get ready for a little scrubbing but you will be going fine.

 NephMakes wrote:
Isopropanol (AKA Isopropyl alcohol or "Rubbing alcohol") is very effective at removing acrylic paint without harming plastic. In normal times it's easy to find in grocery stores, pharmacies, and hardware stores, and very cheap. Might be more difficult or expensive at the moment, though, because it's a common sanitizing and disinfectant product.

Agreed. Isopropyl is the best from stripping mini's once you use it you will never go back to anything else.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
white spirit wont ruin plastic, but it wont strip the paint either, unless its enamel paint.

Dettol will work, but because it contains acetone, it will damage plastic eventually. I believe this would take a long time, but as you've said, its difficult to remove the gunk you get using dettol alone. You can use nail varnish remover to wash the dettol gunk off, but again, this contains acetone and will definitely damage the plastic as you use it.

There is NO acetone in dettol. Acetone would melt the styrene. Dettol does not melt styrene.
It's isopropyl alcohol (90% of the mix is iso), eucalyptus oil and a few other agents for antibac properties. If you rinse with water after using dettol (or water it down for use), it leaves a sticky gunk residue behind from the paint that is impossible to shift without a more aggressive solvent.
If you are going to use Dettol, you may as well just use a bottle of isopropyl alcohol and save yourself the trouble.

Ethanol or isopropyl will both attack the polymer skin that acrylic paint forms as it dries, and with a scrubbing, you can remove acrylic paint with little trouble. IT WON'T tough enamel paints, though.

I must have got them confused. I agree, but over here at least, I can find Dettol in my local shop. Buying pure IPA requires a trip to somewhere more specialist. So I can see the appeal. I haven't stripped plastic for ages so I haven't really needed it.

+1 for isopropyl alcohol, just remember to keep the model wet with it as you brush, once it evaporates the paint dries and wont brush off.

I'm sure denatured alcohol can remove enamel,

After scrubbing the shine will have gone from the plastic but no harm is done

I use Super Clean - the stuff in the purple bottle. May be the same as Dettol under a different brand name.

Will usually bathe plastic models in it for about a day to get rid of the paint. I usually get the surface level cleaned and have to do another bath for the undercoat.

But it's never destroyed a model. I did accidentally leave a Dreadnought in a container with Super Clean for about a month and the parts got flimsy without losing detail.

A word of caution about isopropanol, though: it can seriously weaken and damage resin models (or at least GW "Finecast" resin)

I once dropped a Finecast character into isopropanol for less than an hour and then scrubbed the paint off with an old toothbrush, only to to discover I also scrubbed off several of the finer pointy bits. The model had become very soft and bendy. It didn't become properly rigid again until several months later. I hate to think what would've happened if I left it soaking overnight.

Thanks for the tips. I have a couple of follow-up questions

1. Would Surgical Spirit achieve the same result as iso? From what I can gather iso is just rubbing alcohol, I asked the girl in Boots if they have any and she acted as if she's never heard of the stuff, directed me towards "surgical spirit". The label didn't mention anything about iso, it was mainly ethanol, is this usable?

2. Similar to NephMakes' post, what is also a good resource for stripping resin? I balls'ed up an Orion recently (I hadn't dusted enough before airbrushing the next layer of gold), and would want to just strip most of it and redo it, what is safe to use on resin?

Yes its surgical spirit, just go with Methylated Spirit thats also ethanol and methanol plus its eaier to buy on the street than rubbing alcohol in the uk.

I personally havent stripped resin with it but I do have some finecast sprues that I can test with if you want?

 Rybrook wrote:
Yes its surgical spirit, just go with Methylated Spirit thats also ethanol and methanol plus its eaier to buy on the street than rubbing alcohol in the uk.

I personally havent stripped resin with it but I do have some finecast sprues that I can test with if you want?

Thanks for the tips, is Finecast necessarily the same resin as FW? My knowledge of resin as a material is quite limited, are there different types at all?

Finecast is definitely different to forge world resin, but whether it's just in hardness or other properties too, I couldn't say.

TBH with alcohol stripping it takes like 10 mins per mini so shouldn't affect the properties of the resin, just dont leave them soaking overnight