Finer Points of Stripping Pt 2

We now continue with the little experiment started this past weekend.  The results were a little surprising.  Apparently the clear winner of the contest was the Car Quest purple floor cleaner.

The Dire Avenger on the far left was stripped using the purple floor cleaner strait.  It was not diluted.  It took a minimal amount of scrubbing with a medium tooth brush to get most of the paint off.  The middle Dire Avenger was in the Simple Green that was not diluted.  It did strip the paint, however it took a lot of scrubbing with the tooth brush and nowhere near the same amount of paint came off.  The last Dire Avenger, on the far right, was in a diluted mix of Simple Green and as you can see basically no paint was stripped off. 

The most important part of this little project was to find a method to strip the paint that did not harm the plastic.  From this one run I can say that neither chemical hurt the plastic.  The Car Quest purple floor cleaner is the clear winner.

That said i now have six jetbikes sitting in a jar getting the crappy paint job stripped off.  I am still waiting for the conversion kits from Chapter House studios.  I am hoping to get them so i can get them assembled to the point I can use them in the ard boyz tournament.

The Eldar list did ok against our local Tau player but sadly I lost the game.  I blame my deployment and the terrain.  A spearhead deployment for Tau is great especially when My troops are mired down in difficult terrain.  I have concluded that I must make a more mobile list.  I have done a new list with an emphasis on mobility and infiltrators.  I basically replaced my guardians with Pathfinders. and added some mobile units.  the list is still in development and has 3 versions so after i play a couple games today hopefully I can work out the kinks and post the official list in my pre tournament post.   I will make an additional post before the Ard Boyz Tournament Saturday and my usual post on Sunday with an aftermath report.  Now its time for lunch and time to get in some battles.  So until next time.

 as always.......

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

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!