Stripping Paint the 'Easy Way'

Stay tuned for updates on Appy & Techie... they're nearly done and just looking for a warm day to seal and complete final touches.

So, in the background, I have moved onto the next project.  For the next project I have a number of metal models that I inherited.  Some of them were in various incomplete stages of painting, or had old primer.  At first I considered preserving the paint, but after looking closer I decided there were too many problems.  I wasn't exactly looking forward to the alternative - stripping the paint off, but it became clear that there was no other option - the paint jobs were not in good condition and were not at the level I wanted.

I looked for advice from the helpful 40k reddit folks and it seemed acetone was the way to go.  The basic advice was to soak the miniature in acetone for 5 minutes, then scrub with a soft toothbrush, and then finally rinse with warm water.

Here's the after and before:

I think it worked really well.  The adventure was a learning experience: I found a few tricks that made things even easier.

To start with I got some acetone and in the same trip out to my dad's workshop to drill some holes for pins and magnets, I also got out the sonic cleaner and dumped them in.

The first problem was that working with acetone isn't fun.  You want to be outside because of the fumes.  Also, it can really irritate your hands.  So here's what I found:

1. Latex/Non-latex gloves don't work, the acetone melted straight through almost immediately.  Instead we had some heavy PVC type gloves that worked, but it limited dexterity.  These gloves also helped with another problem - the rapid evaporation will suck the heat straight out of your fingers very quick, and so if you're outside in early spring it hurts a lot.

2. Dunking the toothbrush into the acetone and then immediately scrubbing is SUPER effective.  Just scrubbing after taking the miniature out of the tank, or applying acetone to the miniature wasn't nearly as effective and would require a lot more effort.  But by either dunking the brush, or using an eyedropper to wet the brush and then scrubbing immediately would pull the paint and primer off after just a few seconds of vigorous scrubbing.

3. I also held the miniature in a paper towel so that it would absorb the acetone particles/spray from the brushing and trap a lot of it from going everywhere.  It was also a good way to see how effective the brushing was.  By using the brush dunk technique the paper towel would immediately turn very dark gray/blue, while when not using the technique a clean towel would slowly turn light gray at a much slower rate.

(The other picture kinda looked like I just changed it to black and white, so with this one I wanted to get my hand in there to prove it heh)