Simple Green + You

Hello Fellow Commorites!

I want to share my experience with Simple Green as a Paint Stripper for Plastic Models.

I had recently decided to repaint my army (Previously very similar looking to the Kabal of Flayed Bone in the Painting Guide), and I needed to strip the paint from my 50 or so Kalabites.

I did some research on some do's and don'ts on varies webpages and decided to go with the EcoFriendly fairly cheap method of Simple Green.

Using Glass Spaghetti sauce containers, I put them in a 1:3 Solution of Simple Green.
By the time I came back from dinner a few hours later, the paint was wiping off with ease.

Using a toothbrush I brushed the models until most of the paint was gone and decided to leave it overnight to see if I could get it all off; specifically the hard to reach recesses.

Sure enough, next day after work (almost 20 hours of soaking at this point) the models came out perfectly. The primer was still there on most of the models (some of them started to brush off) but they looked great.

I will say, that some of the "Plastic Glue" I used did start to come off and will need to be reglued (It's this weird like rubbery glue that I'll never by again) but all in all Simple Green worked like a charm.

Glad to hear you had good luck with simple green.  

Sadly this success has a lot to do with how "modern" the paint you are stripping is, and less to the power of simple green.  Acrylics produced in the last 10 years or so come off easily with a number of cleaners including simple green and pine sol (dettol for you european folks).  The tooth brush is usually pretty effective (the stiffer the better) , but I'd also recommend hitting up the dollar store for some cheap dental picks and blue tack - which works really well for pulling loosened paint out of crevices and fine detail.

I personally have a (bad?) habit of buying painted models off ebay and products like simple green simply do nothing against very old/enamel/varnished paints, especially the enamel spray paint they are often primed with.  If they're metal; No problem, you just drop them in a 100% acetone bath, brush them off and they're good as new (although the plastic bases often break when removing them or will melt in the acetone if you don't).

For plastics, I keep a gallon or two of "Super Clean" in the garage as this de-greaser will often do the trick on these paints simple green won't touch.  The problem here is that this stuff is essentially lye, and while it's safe for plastic/metal/glass/resin/"the environment", it slowly eats through green stuff(and some rubber gloves) and more importantly causes chemical burns to skin.  I seem to have built up something of an immunity to it over the years, but the first time I opened a bottle it burned my finger tips badly.  It can also take a considerable amount of time to break down enamel, especially in cold temperatures, and leaves behind a chalky residue that you need to wash off in soapy water.  However it's recommended you wash off any model before you paint it anyway.

Using these methods I've managed to build up... 7 armies, with minimal outlay.  Now if only I could develop a steady enough hand to paint at what I consider an acceptable level .  Spray primer is sadly as far as I'll get with most of it.

I started on a quest to find the utlimate paint remover after I decided to build a space marine army on the cheap just to have something to play when I was not feeling masochistic.
Obviously I was not going to buy new marine kits when ebay sold them for 1/4th of the price or less, pre assembled and primed. Well as it turns out the cheap models are not put together in the poses I want them is and the primer is on top of two layers of lumpy paint applied with a spatula.
So I scoured internet forums and youtube for some good advice as to what to use to get the paint off my thrift-marines without damaging the models and less importatly, my health.
All kinds of substances were tested.

Acetone:
smells bad, melts plastic, your face and your brain.

Various products with pine oil:
Gets some paint off, but leaves primer intact and does not clean very deeply.
It needs a long time to soak, and most of the time you need to repeat the process a couple of times. Also, if the original primer layer was applied with the same skill as the layer of paint, the details of the model will still be filled in with gunky primer.

Stronger stuff like oven cleaner, brake fluid etc:
No way man!

Don't settle for any of these^

After a solid year or so of searching I stumbled upon a video where a guy recommended pure alcohol. He used alcohol to clean his airbrush, so why not try a mini.
Long story short, there is nothing like booze to get wyches to strip.

Don't drink this

This eats the paint, the primer and depending on which glue is used weakens the glue enough for you to be able to take arms and legs off to repose the model.

Toothbrush still needed, and as always gloves and a well ventilated room.
I have one jar for first time soak, and one cleaner for a second soak if there is still paint left in the details. Two washes and you will be looking at nothing but grey plastic or shiny metal.
I usually soak for 24 hrs, and give the jar a whirl once or twice during the day to circulate.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

I use acetone free nail varnish remover. Works like a charm on everything I've tried it on, is pretty quick to get almost all the paint off (red seems the most resilient for some reason). I've not had to soak anything for longer than 5-10 minutes to get to a point where is ready to be re-primed, though the toothbrush takes a beating sometimes.

Haven't tried it on enamel type paint, but then I'd advise not buying models painted this way anyway.

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

Haven't tried it on enamel type paint, but then I'd advise not buying models painted this way anyway.

I agree, but some time it's just too tempting.  Most of the folks on ebay (myself included) can spot tough to remove paint and are much less likely to bid on those models - which means you can get them for next to nothing if you're willing to put the work in.  As an example - last month I bought a defiler, two bikes, 10 chaos hounds, and about 20 chaos marines in a big lot for about $10 shipped.  As a general rule I don't bid on something unless I'm going to feel guilty about winning it

But ya, they've been soaking since then and are just about to a point I can re-prime them.

I'll have to try the that acetone free varnish remover and pure alcohol.  Thanks for the tips.

A note of warning about the acetone free nail polish removers. There are several different kinds that either does not list acetone in the contents or says "acetone free" on the bottle itself. I have tried several different types and while some worked OK, some brands still melted the plastic and ruined my models. So try it out on a model you won't mind ending up as a casualty on a scenery piece/objective marker first.

I actually save sprue material and use it to test stripping chems (among other things).  Sometimes I go as far to paint it just to see how well things strip off.  Anything I buy that melts plastic I'll just use to work on my 3000~ points of metal daemons I still haven't stripped, I had to take a break from working on them as the acetone was drying out my hands horribly and eats through any gloves I can find.