I have seen a few people talking about using different solvents to remove paint from plastic miniatures online. I was curious as to how this would work so I decided to try it out for myself. I bought a few Chaos Warriors when they first came out. I painted various schemes as testers for a full army. Now that I intend to actually collect the army I felt these would serve as a good test model for the stripping. I used Nail Polish Remover as it was the easiest to find. €2 in Boots Chemists for 150ml seemed a fine deal.
The Stripper:
The Victim:
The Chaos Warrior took the plunge for only a minute and a half before I removed it. I didn't want to risk leaving him in too long
in case he turned into a puddle! He came out and the paint was already bulged and cracked ready to be removed from the surface.
Just out:
Removing the paint:
The paint came off the smooth areas very easily. However on the more heavily textured surfaces it was a little more
resistant. A toothbrush quickly took care of that. I was worried that the surface might soften and be damaged if I scrubbed too hard. That wasn't a problem at all and within a few seconds the model was clean and ready to be repainted.
The result:
One problem I did have was with the container I used to hold the Nail Polish Remover! Five minutes after I used it and just as I was about to pop another model in the bottom of it dissolved spreading a fine puddle of sweet smelling liquid everywhere. Luckily I had moved it from my painting desk to a
safer area and there was no problem except the smell. I advise using a glass container!
So now I have a regiment of Chaos Warriors ready for the new incarnation of my Chaos. Well I suppose that they are the only incarnation of Chaos as the first one didn't get very far! As they are glued together already there won't be much to do with them in terms of conversions. They will probably just end up as standard Hand Weapon and Shield Warriors. I can once again practise the colurs schemes too but I have a fairly good idea of what I am going for.
I have always painted my Circle forces to the highest standard I am possible of so I knew I wanted to get all of the paint off of these. The problem with what I have used before is that it won't strip black GW primer. Now in some ways thats fine as it can be really handy to strip a model right down to the primer and then save the effort of repriming. However despite the fact I will prime these again I wanted to make sure all the detail was free of paint. I normally use acetone free nail varnish remover as it is safe enough for plastic models (I still wouldn't leave them in it too long!). The acetone however really gives paint remover a kick so to get the black primer off I knew I needed some of this stuff.
I picked up the cheapest stuff a I wasn't going to use this for my nails or anything else I didn't need to worry. It was €1.50 so pretty cheap. I poured about three quarters of it into a glass jar and dumped the models in without their bases. I am assuming that the bases would be quickly dissovled if I put them in. The effects were pretty instant. Within a few minutes of having dumped the miniatures in I could see paint on the large flat areas begin to come off. The detail heavy areas were more resistant. So I left them overnight and here is what the result looked like.
The liquid was completely black though it hadn't turned into a sludge or thickened at all in fact. Shaking it a little I could see that the paint was 95% removed from everything. The only exceptions were really deep recesses and the face on the Stoneward. I quickly washed off the excess and with some warm water and a light brushing all the paint came off. Of course I forgot to take a photograph of the cleaned models. I have dumped some of my ebay acquired Khador into the black soup to see if if can be reused a number of times. Hopefully it can!
