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Isopropanol as paint and glue stripper?


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Hey hey!

 

I am looking into easily accesible products for me to strip old painted models, and maybe even remove super glue. Would ispropanol work? Does it soften plastics? Does it affect resins or metals in any way?

 

If you have any experience with this material for miniatures, please let me know!

 

have a good one,

-Alex

By all accounts most alcohol based cleaners/thinners work well without effecting the plastic.

Depends which one you can get the cheapest / most easily.

 

I use Dettol, and it works well for me. I've found the key is to pour the contents into a seal-able container, dunk the minis in it and let them soak overnight.

Good choice.

 

Isopropyl alcohol is what i use (Baught from Maplin electronics by the litre). Swear by it. Leave it for a few hours/24 hours pending how thick the paint is and then scrub with toothbrush.

 

Works well on metal and plastic. Personally i have had no isses with resin either, but its worth testing on a small cut-off.

 

Hope is helps!

 

Cheers,

 

Graymane

Superclean is hands down the best product I've ever seen or used for stripping mini's. It easily strips paint, doesn't hurt the plastic and also dissolves glue. You can find it at any car care store

 

http://www.supercleancanada.ca/images/superclean_cleaner_degreaser_group.png

I've used it with mixed success.  Depends on the type of paint/sealer used, and age..  Some worked within 12 hours, some it had no effect on.  I've been using Purple Power now.

Has it worked well on Gw and Vallejo paints? Especially when no varnish was used?

 

 

Superclean is hands down the best product I've ever seen or used for stripping mini's. It easily strips paint, doesn't hurt the plastic and also dissolves glue. You can find it at any car care store

 

http://www.supercleancanada.ca/images/superclean_cleaner_degreaser_group.png

Thanks for the tip! I will have a look at that

 

 

Good choice.

 

Isopropyl alcohol is what i use (Baught from Maplin electronics by the litre). Swear by it. Leave it for a few hours/24 hours pending how thick the paint is and then scrub with toothbrush.

 

Works well on metal and plastic. Personally i have had no isses with resin either, but its worth testing on a small cut-off.

 

Hope is helps!

 

Cheers,

 

Graymane

 

have you also got experience with if it dissolves glues? Like super glue and the gw plastic glue?

 

Thanks so far for all the experiences people!

Any 'Paint stripper' won't dissolve polystyrene cement (GW Plastic Glue), it works by melting the plastic together.

 

No, but anything that is cyanoacrylate will, which is what most people use. Plastic cement has a much longer dry time, and so is less often used by most modelers. 

 

have you also got experience with if it dissolves glues? Like super glue and the gw plastic glue?

 

 

Plastic cement it has no effect on.

Most superglue i find it renders very brittle, so even a slight pressure pops the parts free. Others, however, remain solid.

 

Sorry to be a bit vague, but thats just on the basis of my experience. :)

Most Plastic Cement bonds will not break down with paint stripper as Plastic Cement melts the plastic and forms a soild bond. Now I say most cases, because I find that quite often the bond will not be perfect and the stress of cleaning on the joints will cause them to break, but its just as likely to break along any line of weakness.

 

Just as a FYI, I use Mean Green Cleaner, which I soak the model in for 2 to 4 months.. and then it goes in a Ultra-sonic Cleaner  (A Cheep one I picked up from Amazon), and it gets turned on every few days.. within a week 90% of parts are clean without much work on my part. A few parts need some scraping others with a thick cover of paint need a brush with a old tooth brush before another week in the Ultra-Sonic Cleaner. 

2-4 months?!? eek.gif

Superclean will strip most anything within a day. Maybe you should check that out instead.

Its mostly because I am lazy... and I have been stripping and breaking down a whole IG infantry army and a pile of Tanks and two medium size chaos Marine armys... I have a whole cooler full of models and paint stripper.

I have stripped a model with a few hours with some elbow grease and the ultrasonic cleaner, leaving it on the extended soak means that some of the IG I painted in 1997-2003 3 or 4 times without stripping just require a quick rinse under the tap to get it back to bare plastic (even the primer will be lifted)

 

Any 'Paint stripper' won't dissolve polystyrene cement (GW Plastic Glue), it works by melting the plastic together.

 

No, but anything that is cyanoacrylate will, which is what most people use. Plastic cement has a much longer dry time, and so is less often used by most modelers. 

 

 

I don't know if that's quite right. I imagine most people putting plastic GW stuff together use Poly cement - it's what GW sells to customers for gluing plastic kits and it's easy to use 

I quick check on some of the military modelling forums I frequent show they mostly use poly cement, probably 60/40 vs Cyanoacrylate

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