Stripping Models

Having recently gotten my hands on a large number of new models (as well as having several from my early days in the hobby), I find myself in need of a great deal of stripping. I was wondering if anyone had any particular advice on this subject. I'm using the purple Simple Green (the concrete cleaning stuff), and it seems to be bringing some of the stuff off, but other bits are more resilient than I'd care for them to be. Is there any particular ratio I should be looking to use when diluting the chemical? Is there any technique I should be looking at using other than "hit it with a toothbrush"?

i've heard of people taking a small fish tank and a filter and just letting it circulate the solvent more (needs ventilation!!!) but not sure if that's practical

if your using simple green to strip paint, you shouldn't be diluting it at all. it has to stay concentrated or it will take too long and it wont get rid of stubborn older paint. and if you used enamel, or did thick coats of acrylic paint on them and it refuses to come off, you'll need to stitch to something stronger that's meant for enamel based paint.

simple green is best as an eco friendly, concentrated stripper for water-based and latex based paints. it's not as effective on the other stuff. for that, you'll have to goto the house paint section and buy a bottle of enamel or acrylic paint thinner to soak them in to get it to lift off the models. otherwise you're looking at multiple re-soaking and scrubbing with a brush to lift it all off. btw, i find an electric toothbrush with the spinning round head works best for cleaning because it'll get into the recessed areas better than a normal toothbrush can. i do this under the tap while running warm water over it to further help with cleaning off the excess paint.

Eco friendly!? That hippy shit'll never work. *kidding*

I have often found in the past that a toothbrush makes a bigger mess than i need. if you take a pick, like your dental tools from princess auto, you can pull off big continuous gobs of paint all at once without pushing it into the nooks and cranies. For sure run it under the tap to get the loose stuff off first, but then just pull at it and you can peal the mini like your removing the face off a traitor that wont cooperate and give up his contacts.

I have yet to encounter any of said globs that you speak of.

I have heard of ppl using dot 3 brake fluid. Im just not sure how safe it is for your figs if left over a period of time

One thing to think of how you plan to dispose of said fluid.

Also, to strip model, first you have to get them good and drunk...

Roland wrote:Also, to strip model, first you have to get them good and drunk...

Oh my....
Sapped models can't say no....

So, on round 3 of trying to strip these Warriors, I found the dental tools useful, but not taking things off in huge sheets. I found it tended to break everything up, like their skin was flaking off (Odo from DS9, anyone?). Following that with the brush seemed to yield a lot of bare plastic, but there is only so much you can get when some parts of the model covers up other parts. I think I'm good to start rebuilding those models now (some parts came loose, some spines didn't care for the process, et cetera). As good as time as any to convert these guys over to rodless Gauss Flayers as any, I suppose.

Up next I throwing some Destroyers into a fresh batch with an increased concentration of Simple Green. I'm hoping to get as much as I can out of this jug.

It seems that the increased concentration, combined with the larger amounts of large and smooth surfaces, made the Destroyers rather easy to strip, with one of them having simply molted over night. A shame the green rods seem stuck in the guns good and tight on them, I had orange ones ready to go and everything.