Problems stripping paint...

[Mr.J]

Hi all, have been stripping some old/poorly painted minis and some have worked fine, some not so good and some not at all.

I've soaked them in oven cleaner and that seemed to work for most but some it barely touched and others seem to have turned a bit odd, a rust-like coating has covered them. Any suggestions or solutions on how I can fix this?

Is it ok to paint onto them anyway? The details are still pretty sharp but I'm concerned if I paint them it might not cover them properly.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

[myincubliss]

Is it a discolouration of the metal or perhaps a very thin residue of run paint? I had this with a couple of miniatures I was scrubbing today, got most of it off but they went back into the jar to soak some more. Strange though, that it only seemed to happen with the older GW miniatures I was cleaning, perhaps it's a tin/lead/metal x issue? More musing on my blog: Anyone can be a stripper

[Mr.J]

I think it's a residue left over. Gave them another good scrub and dunked them again, hopefully this will sort it out. Thanks for the help, the article was interesting.

[Heldrak]

I sometimes use a spray-on oven cleaner and I sometimes get that rusty residue you describe, but it usually washes right off. One thing I like to do is to switch strippers, so if I start with oven cleaner, then I switch to Simple Green after the first treatment. I find that different types of paint respond to different stripping agents, so it sometimes takes multiple soakings in various different solutions to get a truly clean strip. Scrubbing the figures with a denture brush under hot water with dish detergent between stripping steps helps too.

[Mr.J]

Well I've used a few different oven cleaners and I think maybe it does depend on the paint. I've tried again with nail varnish remover simply because my girlfriend had some in the cupboard so it was easily at hand.
The residue was really tough to remove for me so I figured a further dunking might work. Fingers crossed.

[Jules]

I have just discovered a new and very effective paint stripper.  It requires a little story.. so there I was painting my latest batch of 1:600th Me 109s Nicely under-coated, fusalage dapple applied now for the top coat for the wings and there it was a jar of Tamiya Acrylic a bit old (OK 10 years old) the perfect colour I was looking for, a quick test showed it was going to look great, so boldly I started to paint the waiting minis the first went well but the paint started to thicken for the second as I pulled the brush across the model all of the area of contact shined through silver!! What's that I think have I dip my brush in the wrong pot? No the brush is dark green but what are those blobs of grey flecking the brush... my god its undercoat!!!

Yes 10 year old Tamiya acrylic is the perfect paint stripper....

[TheMightyFlip]

I need a UK solution to stripping Heroclixs.

[Commander Vyper]

I wouldn't bother mate, just rub down the mould lines and hi paint and undercoat as usual.

[Mr.J]

Well after playing around with a few different things I've found that nail varnish remover works best for me. Most of the figures I've done actually look new out of blister and it's even got rid of the grimey residue left on the others.

It is odd though as for most the paint simply flakes off and when I put an old toothbrush to them it came off in huge chunks leaving the figure 'clean', with others (painted at the same time with the same paints) it just wouldn't shift it. For these I just resigned and tried again, I'm hoping they'll come up stripped next time.

Shame about the eyewatering smell off the liquid tho, other than that I'd say it was perfect for this.

[myincubliss]

The problem with stripping herocix is anything strong enough to shift the paint is strong enough to melt the plastic  All the superheroes on my blog have had the treatment espoused by Vyper, a quick scrape with a knife then hit with undercoat.

[FramFramson]

I still stand by Acetone, but you've GOT to be careful when using it.

You absolutely need physical pressure to get the paint out of any crevices or cracks, but using sharp or hard objects will easily damage the acetone-softened plastic. My compromise is to use cotton swabs and simply give up on the really deep crevices. It's very labour-intensive, so I really don't do it unless it's a particularly nice or important figure.

A lot of clix figures have really nice sculpts once you clean all that glopped on garbage off.

[wellender]

Acetone is the only way to strip clix that I have found to work.  I stopped doing it though because it is time consuming and not exactly good for you.  It's a shame because, like FramFramson said, a lot of them have nice sculpts underneath.

[Damien]

Anyone want any minis stripped just send them to me and I'll mail them back. Sounds weird but I enjoy stripping paint and I don`t use anything toxic; paint come off and the figs look as good as new.

PM me

Damien

[Grimmnar]

Anyone want any minis stripped just send them to me and I'll mail them back. Sounds weird but I enjoy stripping paint and I don`t use anything toxic; paint come off and the figs look as good as new.

PM me

Damien

You use the power of love dont you Damien?  :-)

Grimm

[Damien]