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Hey y'all,

I had a couple accidents with the priming can and later on in the painting process, and am now looking for ways to strip paint from my models so I can put them in my next batch. I've tried EZ-strip, but that's ineffective, and I've tried 70% rubbing alcohol for 6 hours+a toothbrush, but that hasn't worked either. I've made some progress with a steel file on my pilot projects (an old Tau flamer I primed years ago and never intent to use), but even that takes forever, probably won't get into the recesses and could very well damage my models if I use it. Any thoughts?

First things first, what material are the models in?

dyndraig wrote:
First things first, what material are the models in?

They're five plastic Primaris marines from Dark Imperium. I've primed them in armypainter white.

Danielle Rae wrote:
They're five plastic Primaris marines from Dark Imperium. I've primed them in armypainter white.

I use 2 solutions none are optimal but work great:

1 my preferred method: dot 3 brake fluid, USE GLOVES, protect your eyes, does not smell but is toxic. Rinse with soap.
2: Dettol the anti septic stuff not the soap with "dettol" in it, pure dettol, dilute it (youtube is your friend) stinks like a hospital, like concentrated hospital in fact, works though.

Both methods I recommended to do in a shed/garrage, with lots of airflow, and away from mother/gf/wife/husband/kids to prevent conflict.

Bonus:
3?: Folks seem to have a good time with "simple green" but eu guy here, so we don't have that
4?: Isopropyl alcohol seems to work also quite well but here in the eu it's harder to come by,(and brake fluid served me well so never went looking for it in a chemist)

Metal mini's = nail polish remover with acetone, 3,2,1.. paint gone.

Find some denatured alcohol (purple stuff)
It will strip paint from plastic and take the shine off which makes the new spray adhere better

Scrubbing with a toothbrush should see the paint off 5 minis in less than 1hr

Get a half gallon ice cream bucket with lid, some ziploc bags, put models in ziploc and poke holes in the bag, soak it in purple simply green via bucket for a week.

Scrub models with used toothbrush and hot water, lay on towel to dry off the excess water. Soak the models in 90% rubbing alcohol via Tupperware with lid sealed for a couple days, scrub again with hot water, make sides to wear rubber gloves.

Don’t soak resin in 90% rubbing alcohol for more than a minute, it will make the resin rubbery flexible and let the trapped air bubbles out, especially thick pieces like a torso or larger. Plastic and metal are fine. If used models have magnets, pry them out first, I’ve had some metal models damaged with pothole like effect on them after being soaked in simply green for 3+months.

Danielle Rae wrote:
Hey y'all,

I had a couple accidents with the priming can and later on in the painting process, and am now looking for ways to strip paint from my models so I can put them in my next batch. I've tried EZ-strip, but that's ineffective, and I've tried 70% rubbing alcohol for 6 hours+a toothbrush, but that hasn't worked either. I've made some progress with a steel file on my pilot projects (an old Tau flamer I primed years ago and never intent to use), but even that takes forever, probably won't get into the recesses and could very well damage my models if I use it. Any thoughts?

This is something we've all struggled with.

Here in the US, we have a product called Super Clean. I use that for all my stripping, it works wonders. Comes in large jugs for $20, and it's reusable. I just put everything back in the jug with a funnel once I'm done with it.

Super Clean works well enough to get the model ready to be primed and painted. I've found, tho, that getting paint out of detail areas, panel lines, etc. sometimes takes a little more work. I usually soak miniatures in a 91% isopropyl alcohol bath for a few hours after being in the Super Clean. That softens the remaining paint to the point I can scrub the rest away with an old toothbrush.

 Rybrook wrote:
Find some denatured alcohol (purple stuff)
It will strip paint from plastic and take the shine off which makes the new spray adhere better

Scrubbing with a toothbrush should see the paint off 5 minis in less than 1hr

I thought rubbing alcohol was a form of denatured alcohol, or am I mistaken?

How long should I soak the minis in the alcohol?

Denatured is different, https://ecolink.com/info/denatured-alcohol-vs-rubbing-alcohol/

TBH it will work straight away if you scrub them submerged or leave them to soak for 10 mins before scrubbing, just remember to wear gloves, this stuff will dry out your skin and it will peel for days

Brown dettol and nail varnish remover. Leave in the former for a few hours or overnight, then use the latter on a toothbrush to wash away the gunk that develops. Nothing particularly harmful, no need for gloves or ppe, can be done in a kitchen with ease.

No chemical is safe, you should be using gloves no matter what you use in the end.

I use meths to clean my upvc window frames, I strip minis on my kitchen table also. If the wrong nail polish remover is used then you have ruined models.

Of course, but brown dettol, even undiluted won't cause problems with skin Contact, neither will nail varnish remover.

I've had brown dettol undiluted make my skin peel.
That's why it's diluted for wound cleaning.
NEVER dilute dettol with water when using it to strip paint. IT turns the paint into sticky goopy sludge that sticks to everything better than babygak to a blanket.


It's 90% isopropyl alchohol, btw - the other 10% is congeners, the pine and eucalyptus oils and colouring.

And most definitely wear eye protection when using it. You definitely do NOT want any of it in your eyes. It won't cause permanent blindness, but it does dry them out, and it both stings "like the dickens" and causes irritation.

They sell Simple Green in Canada at Home Depot,Rona, Canadian Tire et al.. It's fairly cheap and it works well on plastic and metal, though for metal I would use Dollarama nail-polish remover.

I've not Simple Green on resin so cannot say.

Fair enough, I guess it's down to individuals.. I use it undiluted for wound cleaning on myself. Stings a bit but never had any dramas with it.

 chromedog wrote:
I've had brown dettol undiluted make my skin peel.
That's why it's diluted for wound cleaning.

Same here, after spending half an hour or so scrubbing minis in Dettol I lost a layer of skin off my hands.

Crispy78 wrote:

 chromedog wrote:
I've had brown dettol undiluted make my skin peel.
That's why it's diluted for wound cleaning.

Same here, after spending half an hour or so scrubbing minis in Dettol I lost a layer of skin off my hands.

Rubber gloves help.

So I'm gonna try simple green concentrate. As I understand it, I put it in a Tupperware, put the models in pierced ziploc bags, and leave them there for a week and then scrub with an old tooth brush?

 Danielle Rae wrote:
So I'm gonna try simple green concentrate. As I understand it, I put it in a Tupperware, put the models in pierced ziploc bags, and leave them there for a week and then scrub with an old tooth brush?

yes, poke holes in Ziploc, its there so that parts won't go missing in the tube of filth. 1/2 gallon ice cream bucket with lid or larger are recommended. tupper ware to contain 90% rubbing alcohol MUST have lid as the alcohol evaporates.

I've never felt the need to ziploc them up, personally.

I can see how it be useful, but it seems overly-cautious to me.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I've never felt the need to ziploc them up, personally.

I can see how it be useful, but it seems overly-cautious to me.

Its not really necessary though i will say if you want to save your stripper fluids (gross) especially for bigger models you can zip em without poking a hole so the solution stays in contact without needing to fill an entire bucket.

but ultimately a wire mesh sieve will do the same thing when trying to pull out bits.

 Excommunicatus wrote:
I've never felt the need to ziploc them up, personally.

I can see how it be useful, but it seems overly-cautious to me.

its not overly cautious, but a must imo, you have no idea how little a piece of plastic can be( antenna and the like) lost or broken in the filth, especially after a couple waves of stripping, the paint sludge/sand/rocks at the bottom of the bucket feels like a piece of the model.

At one point, I had about 12k of Blood Angels and Tyranids, all of which were ebay rescues except one squad of SG and Astorath. They all had to stripped, so this isn't my first rodeo you know?

I am not saying that nobody should ever use the ziploc thing, I am simply saying that I never have and have never suffered as a result.

Hey so I see you're in Canada. See if you can get your hands on a cleaner called LA's Totally Awesome. It comes in a concentrate, found at (in the US) Dollar stores. I'll toss models in a tupperware tub and have it sit on a window sill to catch some sun. The warming seems (at least to me) to accelerate the stripping, and I have models clean inside of a day or two.

Simple Green is really easy to lay your hands on here.

An ultrasonic cleaner makes stripping a lot less labor intensive as well, and helps getting the gunk out of the crevices.

I think the issue with questions like this is that there is no perfect answer, and everybody finds a method that works for them then suggests it and you get bombarded with all sorts of different methods - which probably all work to some extent.

It's often worth having a look at what the actual paint stripping ingredient is in most of these things. For example, the folks recommending Dettol - it's the Isopropyl Alcohol in Dettol that actually strips the paint so if that works for you you're much better off just buying Isopropyl and avoiding the smell and general unpleasantness that comes with using Dettol. But people keep suggesting Dettol because it's worked for them, and therefore folks keep using it.

Danielle Rae, it sounds like you might struggle with this paint stripping job. I'm not sure exactly what formulation of 'rubbing alcohol' it is that you used, but that often refers to Isopropyl, which is generally a good paint stripping agent. If that's failed, then I'm not sure how well these other products which contain alcohols as their main stripping ingredient will do. It might be that you just need to leave it for longer, use an ultrasonic cleaner or use an electric toothbrush or similar rather than brushing manually.

I can't help much with recommendations for plastic because I tend not to bother stripping it - I don't strip my old models and I don't buy used plastic models. I've stripped plenty of metal models but those are easy - just remove the base and leave them in acetone until I can be bothered to take them out and scrub them. You don't want to try that on plastic though, acetone will melt HIPS into goop.

I'm gonna vote against Dettol.

I found it didn't get the paint out of some of the recesses, and even left some of the paint on the models, making them appear 'dark', even after scrubbing them with a toothbrush.