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What is a good method for doing a lot green stripping of minis at the same time? Just a big jar? In smaller batches? Can I thin down my simple green and just wait longer for the stripping to work?

I personally use a device called a "Sonic Cleaner". You can pick one up from Amazon or Wal-Mart on the cheap, and they make a huge difference in the time used for stripping paint from models as the sonic component essentially starts the process of brushing the paint off for you.

You can also use a glass mason jar with a lid. Fill it up with minis and simple green (or "LA's totally awesome" which is my preferred stripper) and let it soak a day or two. You can shake the jar and they'll help agitate the paint off.

The sonic cleaners also work. I picked one up off Amazon a year ago for around $30 and it works as well as the shaker jar method with less manual labor.

All-right cool.
I was just wondering if there were any techniques other than "big ol' green jar".

Do you guys out simple green in your ultra sonic cleaner?

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Do you guys out simple green in your ultra sonic cleaner?

I'm going under the assumption I know what your post says, and that what the prior posters are referring to is a jewelry cleaner http://www.amazon.com/Sonic-CD-2800-Ultrasonic-Jewelry-Cleaner/dp/B001DKDAVW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361084703&sr=8-1&keywords=jewellry+cleaner

'Simply fill the tank with water, insert your items, and you'll see professional jewelry cleaning results. A bit of liquid hand/dish soap can be added for enhanced cleaning, but all the work is done by the ultrasonic waves. '

It would depend what type of cleaner you get (I've checked out 3 not on Amazon that all seemed to take anything), but if dish detergent is fine in there, why not SG?

I'm not sure how long you'd leave a model in there for though; someone else would have to fill that in.

I use an old tupperware container and a Denture toothbrush.

I used ultrasonic baths in the lab so I know a fair bit about them - if you don't want to put simple green/another cleaning agent in direct contact with the ultrasonic device, use a thin walled tub inside the ultrasonic cleaner, fill the gap around the outside with water and the majority of the soundwaves will be transmitted through the walls of the tub into the simple green.

You do get some loss of effectiveness, but it is not huge.

I have heard that simple green takes a while to work, so would probably use the ultrasound cleaner every few hours for 10-20 minutes just to loosen things up.

For those in the UK, dettol is very fast acting - I would probably stick items straight into the ultrasound cleaner and leave it running for about 30 minutes and you will probably get most of the kack off.

Usually what I do is a simple green soak for 1 day to couple weeks depending ink lazieness and then use my jewelry ultrasonic cleaner to assist in cleaning the crevasses that like to hang on to the paint.

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Do you guys out simple green in your ultra sonic cleaner?

Yep. It doesn't cause any problems.

One thing to keep in mind is that if you get a sonic cleaner which has a temperature control, you can heat up the Simple Green--which actually makes it work better.
Of course I don't advise doing that for most plastics/resins, but it comes in real handy for metals where the stuff is really caked on there.

Yeah I have a good jewelry ultrasonic with a heat setting. I use to do jewelry manufacturing as a job and hobby/personal business. Wish I had invested in a vacuum and compressor back in the day.

I run my heated ultrasonic cleaner with simple green and bring it up to about 43°C and I haven't had any problems with it hurting my plastics.