Finer points of Stripping

Well due to Father Nurgle bestowing his blessing on the house and a friend visiting this weekend i have no battle report.  So while i play a few games this week to test the list for the Ard Boyz tournament this coming Saturday I will be doing some posts about painting and modeling.  I have some Seer council bike conversion kits coming from Chapter House Studios, www.chapterhousestudios.com,  so i can do a bike council.  I have, possibly, some bike coming from a auction on Ebay that need to be stripped.


So lets look at the art of stripping miniatures.

I received these Dire Avengers painted when I bought a large lot of Eldar from a local Player.  He had already painted them.  These brave warriors will be the lab rats for my little experiment.

As some of you may or may not know people have used all sorts of chemical and stripping agents to remove paint from miniatures.  Stripping a metal mini is rather easy.  You can use paint stripper or thinner.  Some people even use brake fluid.  The point is that water based acrylic paints will fall right off when you use any of these harsh chemicals.  Plastic is another story.  Plastic will melt.  You must use care when stripping paint off of a plastic or resin miniature or model.  I have used one method and I am trying another.

The first method I have tried with some success is using Pine Sol.  Soaking the model in an undiluted bath of Pine Sol Stripes paint and primer.  Some scrubbing with a coarse brush , like a tooth brush, is in order to get the paint that did not just sluff off.

My only two complaints are.  The pine smell is overpowering and really permeates the model.  you must rinse and scrub for a while in order to minimize the smell and get the residue off.  The other complaint is that prolonged soaking does in fact distort the plastic.  There is a film left on the model from the plastic beginning to melt and distort.  So this method is great for metal and sparingly for plastic as long as you monitor it and get the stuff off ASAP.

The next method I am trying involves chemicals like Simple Green.  It is a degreaser and floor cleaner.  I am using a generic kind from Car Quest that I had in the house.  One of the Dire Avengers is currently soaking in a bath of it in a nice metal coffee can.  Once he has soaked for a few hours I will post the aftermath.  Supposedly Simple Green and chemical like it will not harm the plastic.  I will also be trying simple green itself once I go buy some.  So we will see which will reign supreme and make it so buying that great deal you found on ebay even greater.  Greater because you know how to get that crappy paint job off of them so the model will be pristine and require very little work in order to get a good paint job on the it.

So next time we will see the aftermath of the stripping experiment and hopefully we will be starting the conversion of the Seer council on bikes.  Now wish me luck as I start a week of intense training for the Ard Boyz tournament.  T minus 6 days and as always


Blood Runs, Anger Rises, Death Wakes, War Calls!