
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Sep 28, 2014 9:45 am
Location: Swindon, someone has to live there......
Re: Stripping Figures
I use an ultrasonic cleaner filled with IPA which shifts nearly all the paint on metal minis and almost all the paint on plastics - GW's own black primer is hard to shift as it "etches" into the surface of plastics - a bit annoying but you can get minis to the state where you can paint them again easily enough.
Following dunking in the IPA bath I give the minis a quick squirt of fairy power spray and clean them in a bowl of warm water with an electric toothbrush - result sparkly miniatures. I wear nitrile examination gloves for this - two pairs as I find the spiky bits (on mostly chaos miniatures) can puncture a single pair of gloves and IPS stings if it gets into a cut.
The bit that causes the paint to go gloopy is the IPA in the Dettol breaking up the paint and the pine oil (also an ingredient in Dettol) infusing into the paint - a really clever chemist at work explained this to me when I talked to him about the process.
Hope this helps
All the best Otto
