Cleaning 1:72 soft plastic soldiers

[Gabbi]

I've got a box of Dark Alliance's "Stalkers" soldiers, and I am on the process of cleaning them. Filing seems to not give good results, so I tried to scratch mold lines with a blade, but this seems very viable, as residues of the scratched mold lines remain attached to the model making the whole process long and tedious. On top of this, results are far from stellar.

So, any advice from fellow modelers with more experience with this kind of soldiers?

Or I simply have to learn to live with models with untreated mold lines?

[Shahbahraz]

The only thing that will work is a very very sharp scalpel blade, and cutting them off. No shortcuts, sorry.

[Cubs]

What they said. I use medical scalpel blades - incredibly sharp and thinner than hobby blades, so cutting anything other than soft plastic or balsa will ruin the blade.

[WuZhuiQiu]

You could also try using an electric pyrogravure or wood-burning tool, which are like a soldering iron. They can enable you to smoothen the areas where mold lines used to be, not to mention restoring hair and other textures.

For example:

https://www.amazon.it/dp/B07CC99MPH/ref=sspa_dk_hqp_detail_aax_0?psc=1

https://www.amazon.it/PYROGRAVEUR-WELLER-PYROGRAVURE-ACCESSOIRES-BOUGIE/dp/B00AFSNVZ8

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Weller-Electric-15-Piece-Wood-Burning-Kit/3402984

[Cameronian]

Have a browse through here, deals more or less exclusively with 1/72 plastic.

http://bennosfiguresforum.com/index.php?sid=7433f6dda646dc8c65ea3dcaa02f961e

[MartinR]

As above, very sharp knife and/or pyrogravure.

[Gabbi]

Thank you everyone. Will try with a sharp(er) blade for now. Not eager to add tools to my already busy hobby corner ^^;