JonAtron":1bl2xn2f said:
Its just the paint left in the grooves of a few parts I just cant get out with any of the strippers or wooden toothpick. The metal is too soft and tricky to use a scalpel. I't needs to come out as its thick to lessen the detail.
Yes, this was something I couldn't escape either. Perhaps half the models I strip are completely clean after the soak and brush. Half the time there is residue. In my experience you can't deny that the physical removal is, maybe half the time or so, as much the issue as what substance you use for the soak. I would say this because I have sometimes been battling the residue suspecting that the chemical agitation hadn't affected the paint all the way through, only to switch out the scrubbing tool and watch the paint come away rather amicably after all.
Apparently then, the soaking effect HAD degraded the paint enough, it's just that you have to apply the right kind of physical persuasion because the paint really loves to sit in the nooks and doesn't fall out by itself even if it's no longer adhering to the model to a great degree. So I have at times been fighting pain-in-the-ass residue but trying out different scraping tools has made some seemingly impossible jobs if not easy, then at least bearable as there is reasonable progress as you work the model over.
Here's my current toolkit/routine:
Brushing:
- Electric toothbrush. Great preventor of tennis elbow and saviour of morale. Scrubbing away with a manual toothbrush can get very tedious very quickly. The bristles are cropped down short to make them less bendy and scrub better. Got mine at moneysaver hardware outlet discount for a fiver.
- Manual toothbrush #1. An ordinary toothbrush, also with the bristles cropped down short. I use this when the electric gives me dubious results. Lets you put more welly into the scrub job, as I can only put so much pressure on the electric without fear of breaking it's neck.
- Manual toothbrush #2. Bog standard, uncropped bristles. As above, but I only use it when some nook can't be reached with the cropped one or electric due to the short bristles.
Scraping:
- I have a hobby knife with a point that's a bit blunter than your typical X-acto razor blade type knife, and it turns out it's the best "sharp thing" I've found to clean nooks and crannies. To give you some idea of the sharpness I'd say it's not overly blunt, as I actually use it for cutting plastic and metal stuff a lot. But I can jab and slice at my finger with it with enough force that an x-acto blade would draw blood (and this knife doesn't I mean
). It's a rather fine difference, but seems to make a noticeable difference in cleaning efficacy. I have also tried sharp x-acto blades and I found that the sharpest point/blade tends to mostly slice up the paintjob without removing as much of it. The slightly blunter point does a better job of embedding itself in the residue and rip it away in chunks. And to that I would add that my blunt knife would be sharper and have a finer point than a wooden toothpick, so have a look amongst all your sharp pointy things and experiment. There might be something there that's a lot more effective than what you're using.
PVA glue:
I have also used the PVA glue method to good effect. Only once, in the case of a big fur cloak where the soak and scrub had worn off all the high points of the fur texture and left a good chunk of thick primer in each tiny depression. I knew the paint had lost most of its adherence to the model as I had cleaned it rather easily elsewhere via scraping all over and the residue came off in good sized chunks. The fur cloak was a nightmare however, as there were no longer any chunks but a thousand little separate bits that I struggled to even reach and when I did, I only got one at a time. Then I also had the idea of covering bits in PVA glue and rip it off once dry like a brazilian wax job and hey presto - it worked pretty well! So +1 to that. The good thing with PVA is that it's very susceptible to removal by soaking in plain water, so you don't have to worry much about covering a model in it.
Hope that helps!