A comparative test of paint-stripping liquids

[Daeothar]

I received a rather large batch of painted metal miniatures recently, and of course I'll be rebasing and repainting them, as I only want miniatures in my cabinet that I've painted myself.

But as I said; it's a rather large batch and my go-to method of stripping miniatures relies on a single bottle of Simple Green I brought with me from the States back in 2009. So I've been using and re-using the contents of this one bottle for well over a decade, but aside from being very, very dark by now, it's still pretty good at its job. But with every stripping job, some of it gets flushed away, as it sticks to the miniature when they are retrieved from the liquid and then toothbrushed and cleaned under running water, so the bottle gets a bit less full with each go.

Which got me thinking, because Simple Green is not commercially available here in the EU (that I'm aware of), and importing it would be ridiculously expensive. Although; if a next bottle has the same life span as the current one, I suppose it'd be worth it in the end...

Anyway; I have no desire to go back to the Dot4 brake fluid I used before; it's nasty, nasty stuff, and pretty dang toxic, so I'd like to find a good, and safer, replacement for my trusty Simple Green.

Which prompted me to do a little test: I took 4 miniatures of the same batch, so they were painted exactly the same way, with the same paints, undercoats, etc., and put them in plastic containers. I then submerged them in Simple Green (my baseline/check), Dettol, St. Marc and Isopropanol.

I'm now regularly checking on them using a toothbrush and a short scrub of each (with cleaning of the brush inbetween of course), to see which one is most effective.

The test started yesterday afternoon at 1200h, and after two hours, none of the minis lost any paint during the test. After 10 hours, the Simple Green one began flaking (as expected), but the rest remained solid.

After 18 hours, (this morning), a short scrub easily bared the metal on the Simple Green one, and there was definitely some paint coming off the St. Marc one, but the other two remained solid, even though the Dettol one had some very small flecks drifting in the liquid, but nothing substantial came off during scrubbing.

I will be updating this all the way up to about 72 hours or so I think, but I my expectation is that the two with results will be stripped clean by this evening, and the other two might well remain inert. I certainly have no hopes for the iso right now...

To be continued!

[modelwarrior]

Looking forward to this but I thought the Dettol had to be the brown stinky stuff ?

[zemjw]

Yeah, you want the brown dettol from a bottle, not the spray stuff

I put some 20+ year old figures that had been painted in enamel and gloss varnished and it has taken 95% of the paint off with a simple scrub. They're back in soaking to get rid of the stuff in the deep recesses.

[Daeothar]

Yeah; I already had the creeping feeling that I had the wrong stuff. I remembered reading about it being brown, but I assumed that was referring to the labels. 

And there was so much choice at the supermarket, that I just went with the most basic/original looking one. I suppose I'll need to replace the one I've got with the right product and re-test

At least we'll have some extra cleaning agent in the house now... 

[OSHIROmodels]

Biostrip20 is another option but I don't know if it's available over there 

[Daeothar]

Cheers James,

I just checked and it is available through Amazon. €13,95 for 500 grams seems like a pretty good deal.

How is that stuff with plastics?

[OSHIROmodels]

Haven't used it myself (but I really need to get round to doing so  ) but I've heard good things online and I'm sure there's mention of it on here as well.

[Psychlic Bob]

I have used Dettol and it was pretty messy and the stink took months to subside despite being painted and varnished

[Daeothar]

Good to know. Was that on metal or plastic minis? I can imagine the slightly porous plastic material absorbing some of the liquid.

And you'll be glad to know that the agents I'm testing right now are virtually odourless. The St. Marc does have a slight pine scent, but that's not unpleasant at all...

[zemjw]

It's worth having a quick scan of this thread - https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=136271.0, as stripping is a popular topic (ooh, err missus )

For the Dettol smell, storing them in flour does help. I did that with some plastic miniatures and it did clear the pong, but took a while - as in several weeks.

I haven't used the Biostrip stuff mentioned here, but I am going to pick some up. The Dettol does work, but, yeah, it is messy and stinky

[Daeothar]

Heh; I've been posting there too 

[Storm Wolf]

Yup brown Dettol all the way

[Hobgoblin]

I've found Biostrip to be the most effective, the most convenient and - by far - the least noxious. It works well on plastics and metals, and it's really quick (20 minutes or so).

[Drunkendwarf]

Same sort of product as Biostrip; used it on metal and plastic. Brush it on, wait 4-6 hours and brushed it of.

https://www.abbondanza.com/bio-strip-afbijtmiddel.html

DJ

[Daeothar]

Cheers guys; lots of extra options it seems... 

18 hours in:
- the Simple Green mini is about clean after several short scrubbing sessions
- Dettol: a bit of flakes, no result from the scrubbing
- the St. Marc mini shows some bubbling of the paint and it scrubs off relatively easy
- still no visible results on the isopropanol

23 hours:
- Simple Green has cleaned the entire mini
- I feel the flakes in the Dettol quite possibly came out of the toothbrush in an eariler session; no further change
- the St Marc one has caught up with the Simple Green one after lagging a bit initially; mini clean
- total iso let down

So, as a viable replacement for my trusty half bottle of Simple Green, only the St. Marc is a candidate. However; I do have the correct type of Dettol inbound, ETA tomorrow, so I'll add it to the test to see if it makes a difference. (which it should, going by the feedback so far).