I’m sure most people will be familiar with how to strip minis; but whilst I was recently looking around the interwebs for tips, I noticed a lot of articles and posts were very US-centric – so I thought I would post some tips for the Uk’ers.
First of all, the criteria I’ve used:
- Whatever I use has got to be readily available in the UK (and ideally cheap).
- It’s got to be “me-friendly” (basically I don’t want to get cancer by looking at it).
- I need to be able to use it on metal and plastic minis without destroying them.
If you have a search for “how to strip models”, you will probably get “Simple Green” back. We can’t really get that over here so we need alternatives. After working my way through various suggestions I crossed off anything that would melt plastic, kill me or would require import/exports and I was left with Fairy Power Spray and Dettol.
Apparently Fairy Power Spray is the bee’s knees and I have a friend who has repainted his entire army 3 or 4 times and swears by it...but my local supermarkets don’t stock the stuff so I ended up trying Dettol. I got a 500ml bottle for about £2.50 which was enough to fill a container holding 3 medium sized models (think 40mm base) and can be reused. (Fairy Power Spray is awesome - try big supermarkets - Siph) (I found it in the end - it does work really well, just spray it on and leave it for an few hours! - T6D)
I tested it using some Gaunts that I could bear to lose if they turned into a puddle of plastic-y sludge; I just threw them in a jam jar with enough Dettol to cover them and left them overnight.
The next morning I gloved up, took them out and ran them under some warm water and paint just fell off (including the sand on the base that was stuck on with PVA glue) leaving the plastic mini unharmed. The paint turns a bit tar-like and any bits that stuck to the detail were quickly dispatched with a straightened paperclip. I tried using an old toothbrush but it gunked it up really quickly.
After rinsing and drying they were ready for a new paint job – easy peasy!
To stop the toothbrush gunking up just dip it in the jar of dettol every so often. Between the warm water and the dettol the act of brushing the minis actually keeps the brush clean.
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