I'm going to talk about stripping paint off miniatures.  But before I do...

Today's post was slow to update for a few reasons.  Firstly, I somehow deleted my original "before" image of the miniatures I performed my tests on.  Secondly, I wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something colossally stupid in putting my amateur chemistry online.  I'm still not sure I'm not being colossally stupid, but in an attempt to limit any possible repercussions:

A DISCLAIMER

1)  This entry is NOT intended to serve as any sort of guide or instruction manual for the handling of chemicals.  I am not a chemist or chemical professional of any sort.

2)  I, Tim Ford, author of this blog, do not assume ANY responsibility or liability for any personal injury, death, or property damage resulting from trying these methods yourself.

3)  This entry is NOT intended to replace any professional instruction for handling chemicals.  Always employ proper safety gear when handling chemicals.

4)  With that all out of the way, we're handling Pine Sol and Dish Soap today.  That probably sounds anticlimactic after all the crap I just said.  Seriously though.  I'd better not hear anything about this I swear to god.

Phew.  Glad that's out of the way.  Let's get on with...

Stripping Paint from Miniatures

Like many miniature collectors, I buy a lot of my figures online - through ebay, mostly.  A lot of minis simply aren't manufactured any more, and ebay is one of the best sources out there for tracking down those hard-to-find collectibles.  Generally speaking, though, you're buying used property, and in the case of models, that means buying a product that already comes painted.

If you're like me, half the fun of owning miniatures is painting them, and regardless of how well the previous owner painted them, you're probably going to want to do it yourself at one point.  You could very well just paint overtop of the old coat, but there's many reasons this is a bad idea, not least of which is that layers of paint will cake on and you'll lose the figure's detail.

Another good reason, of course, is that the previous owner's paint scheme was hideous.

BUT ANYWAY.

There are lots of methods for stripping paint from your minis, each with pros and cons.  You'll have to find the best one that works for you; I'm only going to talk about the two I tried and liked today.  The important factors to take into consideration when you pick your solvent - the chemical that will strip the paint - are:

a)  What kind of material is the miniature made out of?  (resin, plastic, pewter, lead, etc.)

b)  What kind of area do I have to work with?  (a garage, a kitchen sink, a workshop, etc.)

c)  What kind of paint am I stripping?  (these should MOSTLY be latex-based acrylics in the case of model / hobby paints)

This determines the kinds of chemicals you can and should be using.  Here's a complete list of the chemicals I've heard of hobbyists using:

-  Pine Sol

-  Dish Soap

-  Castrol Super Clean

-  Brake Fluid

-  Acetone

I'm sure there are many more besides, but these are the ones I've seen articles on.  I've only tried - and will only be talking about - the first two.

Dish Soap

Specifically, Palmolive Dish Soap.

The test minis:  a group of 4 pewter halflings, painted in citadel acrylics.  I could be wrong, but it seemed like the undercoat wasn't evenly applied as there were some flake off bits here and there.

The setup:  did it in the kitchen sink.  No measurement, just a goodly amount of dish soap and a goodly amount of water to get a nice frothy mess.

So for starters, safety.  It's dish soap.  Don't inhale it, don't eat it, use it in the kitchen sink.  Don't be a moron.

I tried this out two ways.  First, by mixing up a standard 50/50 solution just like I was doing the dishes, letting the minis soak about 8 hours, and using a wire brush (of medium firmness).

This didn't work at all.  It stripped the flock (that's fake grass, for those who don't know) off the base all right, but none, and I mean none, of the paint.

Then I tried, at the suggestion of a forum post, putting some of the dish soap on the brush and really giving her.

That netted this result:

You can see that it DID get some of the paint off, but I think this was more to do with the aforementioned poorly applied undercoat.  You can see that the mini on the right was barely affected at all.

It can at least be said that this method is wonderfully safe.  Sure, my fingertips were all pruney, but I didn't have any chemical burns.  Hurrah!

Still, in the words of Inception...we need to go deeper.

Pine Sol

I'd used this method once before, and achieved good results.  Here's how it went this time.

The test minis:  a couple of plastic blokes from an old (OLD) "Adventurer's Party."

The setup:  I mixed Pine Sol with water at a ratio of about 7:1 (water:Pine Sol), in an old margarine container, the 427 gram size, filled up completely.  You definitely want to do this in a ventilated area, because the pine smell can get pretty strong.

Obviously Pine Sol is a great deal more corrosive than Dish Soap.  I handled the minis with my bare hands, which probably wasn't the smartest, but had no problems.  I suggest you take precautions nonetheless (gloves are great).

I let the minis soak for 6 hours, then scrubbed them down with a toothbrush.  Here's the result:

As you can see, only the deep recesses were a problem, and I know for a fact these were undercoated properly - I did them myself.

I'd heard horror stories about plastic being dissolved in Pine Sol solutions, which is why I used a relatively small amount of the stuff.  In addition, I used a toothbrush instead of a wire brush out of concern a wire brush would scratch at the plastic.

The results are pretty good.  I left the paint in the deep recesses so you could see it for comparison's sake, but using a metal pick of some sort (like a paper clip or hobby knife) worked well.  I suspect a wire brush would have done the job just right.

The reason I limited myself to just these two ways is because a)  they're cheap and b) they're safe.  Neither chemical is particularly corrosive or harmful, and neither produces dangerous fumes.  And, let's be honest here...they're CHEAP.

So those are my thoughts.  I like the Pine Sol method, but I've heard that Castrol Super Clean may be the way to go.

Let me know in the comments if you have your own methods, or if you like these, or anything else!