Removing fineliner ink.

[jimbo1701]

Hi folks. I don’t know if any budding chemists may be able to answer this one for me. I have a blood ravens army and, due to lack of decals at the time, free handed a lot of the logos onto the army. I want to revisit it in a few months as I now have a lovely decal sheet which I hope will make them look a little bit better.

 

My question is this. I applied most of the chapter icons with a fineliner ink pen as it was quicker and easier than painting on. They were never varnished. Can I apply a solvent of some type to the ink which will remove it and leave the GW paint beneath relatively unscathed? The alternative being to paint over each should pad from scratch which isn’t appealing.

 

Thanks.

[Xenith]

Good Q. I think isopropyl alcohol would remove the ink quickly, you'd then need to rinse with water and dry asap as prolonged contact would damage the paint. I'd probably apply it with an ear bud /q tip. 

 

Test it on another surface first. This is just an idea not a fact!

[MaliGn]

Could try water first as deffo won't hurt the paint.

[pawl]

Good Q. I think isopropyl alcohol would remove the ink quickly, you'd then need to rinse with water and dry asap as prolonged contact would damage the paint. I'd probably apply it with an ear bud /q tip.

 

Test it on another surface first. This is just an idea not a fact!

If I might disagree with the above? Isopropyl alcohol is what I recommend people use for stripping plastic miniatures, and from my experience it works remarkably fast. It wouldn't surprise me if even a light buffing with a cotton bud was enough to start removing paint almost immediately.

[Ovidius Incertus]

Agreed.  Isopropyl is too aggressive.  And even if you do get just the ink, it might be smudgy and need more wiping to get completely, which will lead to more wear on the paint.

 

Frankly, I'd just repaint the area in question.

[jimbo1701]

Thank you for the replies chaps. I think I will try water first, then a solvent should that fail, and the repaint option as a last result. Once done I’ll post the outcome here

[Imren]

take a piece of sprue, paint it the way you painted your blood ravens, wait 24h for the paint job to dry and cure, and try out the IPA on it and see what happens.

[jimbo1701]

Sooooo.

 

Water on cotton bud took off the top layer of the ink very easily. Left the freehand looking pale grey rather than black. Further applications did nothing so I tried alcohol. This did the trick but if applied in all but tiny amounts with more than a little pressure it took off some of the paint below too. The nice I got the hang of it the amount of touch up was minimal but still needed.

 

So in short, I used all 3 in the end. Only issue now is the decals I’m applying (custom purchase) aren’t quite as easy to work with as gw and other decals I’ve used before. The decal itself is quite thick by comparison and needs several layers of micro sol to blend properly. Plus it tends to crack a little.