[GZG] Question for the painting gurus...

Ken:

Is Pine-Sol (or other pine cleaner) safe to use on resin minis? It's a
great stripper for metal figures. Soak overnight,?clean up?with a
retired toothbrush. :-)

TomB:

Not sure about resins. If you want to remove paint from metal minis,
my two best suggestions, in increasing order of potence and decreasing
order of safety, are:

1) Automotive Brake Fluid

2) Acetone

Note that acetone is *rather dangerous*. I kept it in the garage in a
sealed sphaghetti jar. It ate the rubber seal right off. However, it
also ate the five minute (or full fledge) epoxy that had joined some
FSE legionaires to some undesirable washer-type bases. Nothing else
would even dent it. I left them soak for some days and you'd never
have known the washers and figures were attached. And is stripped off
any spare paint that was left too. Handle with the right type of
gloves to protect yourself, do not store the stuff in your residence
(garage or similar), and do not touch it. Wash off the minis with soap
and water afterwards (I used a set of longnose pliers to pick them out
of the acetone). This is the 'nuclear weapons' of paint and epoxy
removal from white metal or other metal minis. Not for the faint of
heart. I DO NOT ADVISE YOU TO TOUCH THIS STUFF UNTIL YOU EDUCATE
YOURSELF ABOUT POTENTIAL RISKS. I found it effective as heck, but I
handle it very carefully.

Brake fluid won't do much to epoxy bonds, but it makes a really good
detersive paint stripper. Similarly soak the figures for a while and
then at most you need a very *light* toothbrushing to finish the job
and a quick wash in soapy water and rinse. You get the figure back
like new. Better than Pine Sol if you are trying to strip any sort of
oil based paint or enamel. This is still not stuff you leave out for
the dog to drink and don't spill it on anything like your car or
it''ll lift the paint there too. But it is safer than acetone.

Other solutions I tried (pine sol, nail polish remover, etc) all
worked somewhat, but never as good as either of these and only acetone
ate the epoxy I wanted removed.

Learning to drybrush:

1) Go on ebay and find some kids toys or someone's crappy castaway
minis. Buy them cheapish and practice. Don't practice on your good
ship minis.

2) If you buy some metal minis, you can paint them, screw it up, soak
them in break fluid, remove the paint, wash them up, retry. Not sure t
his works so well with other forms of material.

-- 
"Now, I go to spread happiness to the rest of the station. It is a
terrible responsibility but I have learned to live with it."
 Londo, A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like
administering medicine to the dead." -- Thomas Paine

 Thomas Paine

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