Argh, damaged painted minis.

[Legionnaire]

During our move some of my minis have gotten their paint scuffed and may have to be repainted. Two questions arise gentlemen.

1. What do you recommend to strip old paint with? Acetone? Oven cleaner (tried it but wasn't satisfied with the result)? Or something else?

2. What do you use to make the paint stick better to the minis when you're done painting?

The Swede.

[Stephen Mawson]

On the second point the usual practice once your happy with the look of a figure is to give it a light coat of matt varnish which should protect the paint so it doesn't get rubbed off over time.

[Matt]

Nail polish remover always works for me.

[terrywarden]

I find that even if you gloss varnish and then matt varnish (this is a recommended approach) that the paint will still gets knocked off of the exposed edges (weapons, hats and horses tails seem to take the punishment) of figures that are regularly used for gaming. It is very difficult to avoid handling figures even when you use large bases. The storage baxes help but they are not 100%.

[daiv]

On the point of cleaning the paint, I find that brake fluid can be a good way of cleaning models.

It can take a little while, but basically drop it in overnight, this will loosen paint. then use and old toothbrush and water and was off. Reuse the break fluid as many times as you want.

Be careful with this method, use gloves as the fluid is Carceogenic

[dave3]

to get paint off, I am told Mr Muscle oven cleaner. Use a plastic bag, put the mini, plus the oven cleaner in the bag. leave overnight, then wash out in the sink, using an old toothbrush to get the stubbourn stuff off; inverting the bag to hold the mini, and not get the rather nasty oven cleaner on you. I haven't tried this method myself, but Steve Welch reckons it to have good results.
As for protecting your paint job. Make sure you primed the mini well, and after painting give a good coat of varnish. Remember that even with this, severe knocks could still chip the paint, so store in a suitable container, like army boxes from Figures in Comfort, or KM. Cranfield has a good selection, from squad size to full on battle hive!
Dave

[Legionnaire]

Thanks for the input gentlemen, I shall soon try out your suggestions.

The Swede.

[John]

Wow didn't know so many people had different ways. Personally I use Fairy Power Spray, though I wouldn't risk it on plastic (I expect your stuff is metal?).

Personally I put a coat of gloss varnish, followed by a coat of Matt varnish on my models (though I am paranoid). Gloss tends to protect better, but looks pretty poor imo and the matt coat hides it.

[Mark Wightman]

I've read that quite a lot of people use dettol on their plastics - never tried it myself.

[Legionnaire]

Made a beginners mistake, that I can laugh at now. Wanted to strip the paint on my LOTOW Hero, Joshua Hex, because I wasn't happy with the way he turned out. What slipped my mind was that I had a plastic base and dipped him into a nail polish remover with acetone, duuuuh. The paint still sticks but the base has melted kind of instead! Tried solution no. 2, oven cleaner which worked better, but now I have to rebase him on a 2p coin instead. Well, I try to learn from my mistakes.

The Swede.

[Steve Guy]

Sept 5, 2008 11:02:19 GMT Mark Wightman said:

I've read that quite a lot of people use dettol on their plastics - never tried it myself.

Zombie-like, this thread comes back to life...

I use Dettol.

Any pine-oil based product will do the job. You can buy a bottle of Dettol from a supermarket for buttons.

Put some in an old mug. Drop in minis (plastic or metal) overnight. The scrub with a tootbrush. Best to wear marigolds as Dettol can sting like hell. Also stinks, so I always do it in garage.

[mike954]

Yep, Dettol here as well.

Scrub and rinse the minis in Dettol to remove the paint though. Don't be tempted to rinse the brush or mini with water until you are happy with the level of paint removal. Water will cause any paint left on the mini to begin to harden up again.

Dettol is safe and gentle on plastics, I stripped a large plastic warjack using Dettol with no issues.

However, just be sure you don't leave anything pushing into the plastic mini/base while it is soaking in the Dettol as that will mark it up a little. I had piled a load of minis higgledy-piggledy into a jar full of Dettol and the bases of the minis sustained some slight marks where the edges of metal minis had sat on them overnight.

[wstevens]

Hmmm - I've always wondered about getting paint off plastics - as long as people are 100% assured that the plastic would be ok I might give dettol a go. However for metals nothing works as well as Nitromors. Evil stuff but very effective. Tip: you will have to wear gloves and make sure that you don't get it on your hands as it reacts exothermically to water when you rinse it off. Ooh I was in agony!

[carl1]

when i have bought 2nd hand minis with paint on them as long as its not caked on too thick i simply use the old paint as the undercoat and simply paint over it.

any areas needing shade i simply paint black first then go over it with the correct colour