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OK so everyone needs to strip models of paint at one time or another and i have lost count how many times i have seen the question of how to do it posted. In the USA you get some mythical substance called "simple green" that seems to be the answer to all your prayers but if you dont live in the USA what do you do? Well i have tried pretty much everything, from brake fluid to hot soapy water and below are by far the best result i have gotten.....but most importantly i have gotten them with little or no effort at all! (which for me is the most important factor!)


OK to END the questions about what to use to strip metal models i give you this:





Remove EVERYTHING plastic! put them in a metal paint can or tin and add this:


Make sure NOT to get any on your hands use thick rubber gloves or long nose pliers to move the models about. you will see the paint start to come off right away, give them a stir with a toothbrush and leave them for no more than 10 min or so. you can leave them for an hour with no damage to the models but thin long swords etc will become very pliable so be careful!
pick the models out with the pliers and drop them in a bucket of water/ run them under the tap. If you do use a bucket beware that your hands will start to feel cold and tingly even though the NitroMors is diluted! now use the toothbrush, scrub away for...ohh..lets say 10 seconds and you will be left with:


for no effort what so ever! yay!

as for plastic models, i have tried many things (including a paste DESIGNED! to remove paint from plastic models....that did nothing...NOTHING! to the paint after leaving the stuff on for 10 hours! GRRRrrrrrrr) by far the best thing to use is Acetone FREE nail varnish remover (thanks Tim) but be warned, this WILL mess up your plastic models if you leave it in too long. cover the models in the liquid, stir and check regularly. remove models and clean up with a brush, repeat until happy.

This is not as easy as my solution for metal models, but its the best i have found for plastic.

Fairy Power Sprey is good for those in the UK who wish to clean plastic models. You need to let them soak a good long while, and may need to be done two or three times if the paint was especially thick, but it does the job. It also works pretty well on metal, although not as well as this seems to.

yeah, i have tried fairy power spray, cif oven cleaner etc. they do ok. but nail varnish remover does better with less effort

For USA people and probably CANADA, Super Clean and Grease Lightning have been tested and approved by me for both plastic and metal. And both work faster than Simple Green.

phillpowell wrote: In the USA you get some mythical substance called "simple green" that seems to be the answer to all your prayers but if you dont live in the USA what do you do?

http://www.simplegreen.co.uk/

thank you

It was suggested to me to use super clean (http://www.superclean.com/product1.php) on my models and it worked just fine. You have to use similar precautions as the aforementioned paint remover as it is somewhat caustic. It works equally well on metal and plastic. I even left a "throw-away" plastic model in a tub of the stuff for 3 days as a test with no adverse effects beyond breaking some of the super glue bonds. Just soak your models overnight and clean them up with a toothbrush under running water.

I have used Simple Green and a toothbrush to good effect after a failed attempt at a digital camo pattern. I do have a question though, will these cleaners still work fine on FW resin pieces? Or is there a better alternative?

Simple green will work on FW resin pieces.

I've done it many times.

Fair enough but hardly "an END to the "how do you strip models?" question" as you say.

Stripping metal models has never been much of an issue as there are a ton of products which will do that, without any of the fear of damage you get with plastic models. Also the bond between the paint and the surface on metal seems to be far more removable than it does with plastic. Amongst the uk available prodcuts I have used fairy power spray, dettol, cillit bang and dot 4 brake fluid which all make easy work of removing paint from metal.

The real question is how to remove paint from plastic models. Brake fluid works for that well enough but many people don't want the risks. + we cant get super clean (which I keep hearing about time and time again) in the uk.

Maybe once I get some spare cash, I will start buying and shipping it to people in the UK

From what I have read on here many times dettol and simple green are the same chem compound just a different name I could be crazy though. I have found that hands down if you can get Super Clean or its generic brother Purple Power it works the best of anything I have tried on both metal and plastic.

Simple green is fantastic and you don't have to wear gloves when you clean with it. I used to work on a wood burning laser lathe and we would use Simple Green to clean the ash and materials off of the metal pieces. We would soak the parts over night and the next day just wipe it off with a brush.

I began to soak my minis in the same liquid (from the same basin to be exact) for extended amounts of time. It cleans both plastic and pewter very neatly, has a pleasnt enough smell, and doesn't irritate the skin.

The only issue I ever had with it is that it is incapable of stripping spray paint primer from a plastic mini. I had soaked black primed minis for days and I could not get any primer off. If it had been primed black then primed white and then soaked in Simple Green the white would most likely be removed, but the black will stay in place.

I've also used Goof Off http://www.goof-off.com/ but I've found that you need a pair of gloves capable of withstanding the chemicals present in Goof-Off. You can soak a mini for a few minutes and it will just fall off. I've cleaned some off by just using an air nozzle.

Disclaimer: Only use Goof-Off on Pewter minis. I've lost a couple of plastic minis to this product.

simple green rocked my socks.... but its hard to get it completely clean.

i used the old GWQ Shadow grey "primer"

all features and details reduced to zero.

put them in simple green, tanks were 100%

guardsmen resembled something i s wear i've seen from the nurgle section of chaos codex.....

could have made a interesting conversion had i been trying to do such a thing...

I'd recommend this link as a supplement to this thread... http://www.paintingclinic.com/clinic/guestarticles/removingpaint3.htm

I've found tis to be a particularly enlightening chart for a wide selection of claimed-paint-strippers. Anyone who wants "the answer" (and there isn't ANY true, definite answer) just needs to dig a little bit, and unfortunately saying "here's the answer so shuddup and you have no excuse" typically doesn't work, regardless of all good intentions. Hence why I save this link for such paint-stripping questions.

pure unused actone is awesome, provided you manage to brush your miniature down in 30 seconds, you need to let the mini sit 1 to 2 hours before another 30 second brush session or your details go out of the window

whatwhat wrote:Fair enough but hardly "an END to the "how do you strip models?" question" as you say.

Stripping metal models has never been much of an issue as there are a ton of products which will do that, without any of the fear of damage you get with plastic models. Also the bond between the paint and the surface on metal seems to be far more removable than it does with plastic. Amongst the uk available prodcuts I have used fairy power spray, dettol, cillit bang and dot 4 brake fluid which all make easy work of removing paint from metal.

The real question is how to remove paint from plastic models. Brake fluid works for that well enough but many people don't want the risks. + we cant get super clean (which I keep hearing about time and time again) in the uk.

The REAL question is how to do it without poisoning yourself to death. Nitromors isn't the nicest cleaner in the world and, while effective, you have to be careful not to touch it or breathe the fumes!

Rubbing alcohol works great on plastic.

Tk421 wrote:I'd recommend this link as a supplement to this thread... http://www.paintingclinic.com/clinic/guestarticles/removingpaint3.htm

I've found tis to be a particularly enlightening chart for a wide selection of claimed-paint-strippers. Anyone who wants "the answer" (and there isn't ANY true, definite answer) just needs to dig a little bit, and unfortunately saying "here's the answer so shuddup and you have no excuse" typically doesn't work, regardless of all good intentions. Hence why I save this link for such paint-stripping questions.

Holy crap! That thing is still being bandied about?!

I did that experiment like 15 years ago.

Lol once famous always famous ;-P

te3b0r wrote:From what I have read on here many times dettol and simple green are the same chem compound just a different name I could be crazy though.

Dettol is an antiseptic.
Simple Green is a cleaner and degreaser.

I used simple green on the pewter necron models. It comes off cept the crap in the crevices and using a brush doesnt get it out. Will use a fine metal brush work or scratch up the model? I Just want ALL the paint to come off from a rinsing under the sink, will super clean/brake fluid do this?

Dettol and Simple Green are not the same thing. Dettol is super though, no harm at all to plastic.

Hmm. Handy. Like.

It would be a lot better if we could go by chemicals instead of name brands so it would work no matter where you are/what is available, but I know sometimes that can be difficult to find out.

I've found Dettol (in the UK) is pretty good for plastics, with the following tips:
- it smells terrible, and you can't get the smell of your hands so use gloves
- use rubber gloves - it disolves the disposable ones so they get all sticky
- put the models in a jam-jar of Dettol and leave overnight
- then use disposable toothbrush (12 for £1 in a Pound shop) to scrub off the softened paint
- don't try to do the scrubbing under a tap - once the Dettol is diluted the paint re-hardens and sticks to everything. Instead, keep dipping the brush in the jar of Dettol.
- you'll still have to use something to pick out deeply embedded detail - I use a modelling tool
- put the stripped figures outside (for a long time) to get rid of the smell
- don't tip the jar of (now polluted) Dettol down the sink - it'll stink for ages, pour it away outside
Hope some of this proves useful

Kutzmon's "how to strip"
and his pimping of 'Super Clean' beats the pants of Nitro.

All materials, and its been tested on enamels.

Im still having trouble with enamel paints.

Its turning into goo and no matter how long i soak
and how much i scrub , its not working.

The goo gets pushed around / stuck in the brush etc etc

Enamels generally suck, and you're going to have to go through several brushes and picks to get that off.

Why, pray tell, are you using enamels?

Oldgrue wrote:Enamels generally suck, and you're going to have to go through several brushes and picks to get that off.

Why, pray tell, are you using enamels?

Bought them like that , couldnt tell the paints material from ebay pictures.