I have used two products. The first is pine-sol, and from everyone's description of how it works it sounds exactly like simple green. It takes roughly 24-48 hours for a good soak and almost everything comes off with little to no issues. What i prefer is acetone free nail polish remover. I don't like the models to soak for to long because if i forget plastic damage can happen. So i try to avoid pine-sol, and use the nailpolish remover because it's considerably quicker. I soak for forty-five minutes, maybe longer depending if it's really layered on. The nailpolish remover is thinner and doesn't bubble up because it's not a soap. I prefer using this, and recommend it.

Blind-

So I ended up putting a few different epic models in a jar, all plastic, and sprayed them with the Fairy Power Spray. Ment to come back to them in a few hours and subsequently forgot about them. Cut to three days later and with a quick scrub with an old toothbrush my test models are no longer covered in "who knows what" paint. Also no damage to the plastic.

Eight stands worth of plastic Eldar jetbikes have just taken a swim. Will check them out tomorrow.

This is from a post I made on librarium online a while back. I don't know if any of it is useful or even applicable at this scale:

After reading so many different threads on what product to use to strip paint of plastic models, I was getting a little confused. People's results even with the same chemicals seemed to vary wildly. The most common, Simple Green, is so rare in the UK as to not be an option and even with that peoples results varied.

I thought I'd run a little experiment. I'd just bought a load of marines from ebay, they were absolutely caked in paint and needed stripping. They were also old and cheap so if I melted a few I'd not be too bothered.

For my experiment I chose five different chemicals I could find around my house, well I went out an buy some ultra cheap multi surface cleaner as close as I could get to the one used by leighjt in his tutorial. Into a jar of each chemical I placed 2 or 3 miniatures, if possible something plastic and something metal

These were the results of the first attempt:


First off the brushes I used, an old toothbrush, a new stiff tooth brush and a wire brush




Vodka

Pilot00 suggested alcohol, he specifically said the type you get from the chemist, but I thought I'd try Vodka anyway. As you can see it did not work in any way. Lets just call this the control, an example of what 24 hours soaking in a non melty liquid and some vigorous scrubbing can do. I should have known vodka has no effect on a space marine, its right there in the fluff!



Foaming Oven Cleaner

Problem here seemed to be, after the foam died down the model was not actually soaking, so nothing much happened. Better than the vodka, but would still take many many attempts to get most of the paint off.



Cheap Multi Surface Cleaner

This result came after two soaks and some very vigorous scrubbing. Not bad though considering its by far the cheapest chemical here. Still bits in the cracks, which is unfrotunatly exactly where I was trying to remove it from, so a spray prime won't obscure the detai.



Expensive Multi Surface Cleaner

Again, these results are after 2, actually I think 3, soaks and scrubs. I even used the wire brush, but the results were not bad, still bits stuck in the recesses, and the bits I can't easily scrub are impossible to clean. Overall no better than the cheap cleaner really



Cream Cleaner

Right, I thought cream cleaner, that should do the trick. Adverts give the impression that the thicker a chemical is, the better it cleans, and this is the premier football player of cleaners, nice and thick! The results however were nothing to write home about, worse than the thin cheap cleaner anyway (and a darn sight smellier and itchier). Metal mini came up shiny though...



Then I remembered someing Lani Guy said:

[QUOTE=Lani Guy;1580265] [COLOR="Red"]TEMPERATURE affects the ability of SImple Green. At temperatures of 70F+ it works awesomely, I am now in cooler/winter temperatures of 30-45F and it does not work well at all.[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

So I thought I'd try the cheap cleaner again in the airing cupboard. Thats not much warmer, not like a radiator, but a couple of degrees. I wasn't expecting much, maybe one less scrub needed or something. I took it out early to have a look too. Now these reults are after less time and with only one light scrub and no redunks. I'm impressed.



I thought I'd give a close up of all the nurgle attack goodness



So my conclusions:

The chemical is no that important, as long as it is a surface cleaner. Don't stress if you can't get Simple Green, any dirt cheap cleaner will do

The more you can break up the miniature the better it will work, partly because scrubbing is easier

Surprisingly wire brushed don't damage plastic miniatures that much

Temperature is very important, we're not talking huge jumps here, just the difference between a window sill and an airing cupboard

You still need a needle or something to clean out the recesses

Leaving things overnight is always best

Space marines are always better if they smell of lemon

NOw time to see if I can scale this up and whether another dunk in warm cleaner will get the last bits of the final test models.

Thanks for posting that!

Vodka is about 40% alcohol; that won't work.

The stuff I use is 92% denaturated; works a charm (o:

_________________
Let there be code.

I always figured Imperial fists smelt of lemon and dark angels smelt of grass or possibly apple.



Wow, whats that? I take it you can't pick it up in Sainsbury's drinks aisle? Does it melt plastic?

You can get denaturated alcohol from chemical supply companies (for bulk) and whatnot and good pharmacies in small amounts.

Here in the US I know we have ready access to Simple Green and Castrol Super Clean degreaser work like frikin magic. I've done metal, various ages of GW plastics, and even resin without issue.

_________________
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-I HAVE NO POINT
-Penal Legion-Fan list
-Help me make Whitescars not suck!

It's undiluted destilled alcohol, with an agent added to make it undrinkable.
I understand that in some places it can be hard to find; here it's about $4 a liter.

It does not harm plastic, and is one of the most efficient paint removers I've ever tried; just plop in, wait about half an hour and scrub.

The only thing I know that's more efficient is acetone, and acetone will eat your brain if you breathe the fumes, and any plastic near it. .

I've stripped most of the used Eldar I got that way.

Every new miniature I get gets a bath in it to get rid of the mold release, which lets the undercoat adhere better (o:

_________________
Let there be code.

Thanks for posting
very intresting

Anyone tried surgical spirit?

Hmmm, according to wikipedia surgical rubbing alcohol ranges form 70-99%, depending on brand, so if we could get some strong stuff it may be worth a try.

Next time I test I won't use Space Marines though, Games workshops own background material states that a marines Oolitic Kidney renders them immune to the effects of alcohol... ;-)

I just bought some brown Detol from Pound Land, apparently thats supposed to be ok so I'll give that a go soon.

Ok, the story first:
I asked for paint stripper at local modellers shop and it wasn't touching acrylic on old style Epic dreadnoughts (bought off someone).
I inquired about this to the chap from shop, and few days later he found and bought this water-based stripper for me:

http://www.restexpress.co.uk/acatalog/B ... ipper.html

I've used it on both metal and plastic with (I assume) acrylics only. It's fast and doesn't leave a trace if you give it a good brush afterwards, you may need to use it again if you have lots of crevices. AND most of all it's NOT corrosive or toxic in any way to you or environment.
The best way that worked for me is to dip whole model in a pot and put it on something like not needed yoghurt lid, after about 10-20 minutes when some of the stuff goes down with gravity I use medium size old brush to put it back on top of model.

Hope it's helpful.

_________________
Fight not for hate of what lies ahead
But for love of what you protect

ill give that a try sometime then.

The best stripper by far for metal miniatures is without doubt Nitromors. It'll strip the thickest paint off metal miniatures in literally seconds. I put the models to stripped into an old jam jar, pour over a decent glug of nitromors, and mix uit up a bit (obviously with lid on!). It will sting if you get it on your skin and don't notice so be careful. I always use this stuff for minis bought off ebay (I find most models sold on eBay are usually painted by a one armed blind person using locks of their own hair), and anything i sell gets the same treatment so that they look like new (although i do always say that I've stripped it back).

As for plastics, I've tried 70% isopropanol before and it was next to useless for old style IG. It took a bit of the top layer off but couldn't touch the black primer; it got no where near bare plastic. I tried a cheap pine disenfectant and that didn't work at all, even after soaking for about a week.