Paint Stripping

Knight Girl said:
@Space Crusader - in my experience being willing to re-hab minis and buy by the lot is saving some money and there is hobby value and some fascination to the stripping/restoration process.

I'm really having fun and it's like turning scraps to treasures.
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I'm not surprised - there's a lot of satisfaction in doing that sort of thing. and to be honest, having seen some of the paint jobs on the old miniatures on ebay, stripping them and giving them a gleaming new coat of paint seems like an act of mercy1 :-D
 
ManicMan said:
again, depends on the glue used. also, how does the glue matter when it comes to the paint? some people like to glue figures together before any paint goes on them.. I think on the whole that CAN be nuts as often the point of them being in multiparts is cause of areas which block off others (thus would be hard to single cast, and sometimes tricky to get a brush into).
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Just experience. 100% of the models I buy are from eBay. And 100% of the plastic goes in the bin or if it's somewhat salvageable may get quickly tarted up and resold.
Why? Because no matter the glue used it's everywhere I don't need it. If it's poly it's melted the plastic, if it's superglue then it's rock hard and a real nightmare to try and remove.
I've yet to find anything that will totally break down CA and not melt plastic although Knight Girl here says she did.
And now I'm at the point of having about 50 mint 5th edition mounts so I don't need to mess about trying to strip plastic.

One exception.... A job lot I bought once. Bretonnian of course.... Horrendous paint but lots of metal. I thought I'd have to bin it all as usual. No, no, no.... This kid had used UHU glue, dried up tube included lol, I could literally peel it off with my fingers and the horsies all scrubbed up like new :D
 
It's quite nice restoring a mini from ebay. Although every now and then you get one where the photos were bad and the actual miniature is lovely. I got an Eldar war walker like that - can't bear to strip it and repaint so it'll just have to be "on loan" from another craft world :)
 
Eric said:
It's quite nice restoring a mini from ebay. Although every now and then you get one where the photos were bad and the actual miniature is lovely. I got an Eldar war walker like that - can't bear to strip it and repaint so it'll just have to be "on loan" from another craft world :)
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I got something like this. A lot of 3 3rd Edition "Bretonnian Knights d'Honneur", the paint looked basic on the eBay photos but they are quite nice in-hand, All I'm doing is adding some highlights and touch-ups.
 
Clio said:
Just experience. 100% of the models I buy are from eBay. And 100% of the plastic goes in the bin or if it's somewhat salvageable may get quickly tarted up and resold.
Why? Because no matter the glue used it's everywhere I don't need it. If it's poly it's melted the plastic, if it's superglue then it's rock hard and a real nightmare to try and remove.
I've yet to find anything that will totally break down CA and not melt plastic although Knight Girl here says she did.
And now I'm at the point of having about 50 mint 5th edition mounts so I don't need to mess about trying to strip plastic.

One exception.... A job lot I bought once. Bretonnian of course.... Horrendous paint but lots of metal. I thought I'd have to bin it all as usual. No, no, no.... This kid had used UHU glue, dried up tube included lol, I could literally peel it off with my fingers and the horsies all scrubbed up like new :D
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Yeah badly built plastics can be a pain, but most gaff's can be fixed with sanding or a bit of filler. I'm a newbie when it comes to Miniatures (despite having a life long interest in this stuff) but I've been building plastic kits for years - normally it's real world stuff though like this Vietnam era M48. (I really should try my had at a Leman Russ) - but most things can be salvaged.

img_1992.jpg
 
Space Crusader said:
Yeah badly built plastics can be a pain, but most gaff's can be fixed with sanding or a bit of filler. I'm a newbie when it comes to Miniatures (despite having a life long interest in this stuff) but I've been building plastic kits for years - normally it's real world stuff though like this Vietnam era M48. (I really should try my had at a Leman Russ) - but most things can be salvaged.

img_1992.jpg
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LOVE it! I adore M48s, I'm in-progress on a TAKOM M48A5. Your M48A3B is superb
 
Brother Meredith said:
Scale model builders nearly always put wargaming toy tanks to shame with their painting!! 😳
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Not so! I've seen some fabulous Wargaming vehicles over the years - weathering is weathering, whether it's on a real world tank or an ancient Rhino. This is pretty basic, just a rattle can finish, some dry-brushing and some basic weathering (washes and 'mud').
 
Eric said:
It's quite nice restoring a mini from ebay. Although every now and then you get one where the photos were bad and the actual miniature is lovely. I got an Eldar war walker like that - can't bear to strip it and repaint so it'll just have to be "on loan" from another craft world :)
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I've taken to only stripping the paint off if its badly painted or the paint has been applied too thickly or something. I've got a few miniatures where I've just touched up and improved an existing paint job. I also quite like the heritage of a painted miniature from decades ago somehow.
 
willlucv said:
I've taken to only stripping the paint off if its badly painted or the paint has been applied too thickly or something. I've got a few miniatures where I've just touched up and improved an existing paint job. I also quite like the heritage of a painted miniature from decades ago somehow.
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I fully agree with that sentiment, and I'd do the same if I could - but the miniature I'd like to strip looks like it's been dipped in poster paint. I also have on order an old 3rd edition Land Speeder, that whilst it looks like it's been painted well enough, and bearing in mind I'm not a particularly good painter, is the wrong chapter.
 
@Space Crusader Absolutely! Don't get me wrong I've happily stripped hundreds of models for repainting, but I have sometimes given them a reprieve when the basic paintwork is sound. I do own some Space Marines which were really beautifully painted (Space Wolves and Blood Ravens) by someone else which will just get based in my style to be pressed into service whilst I continue painting more Imperial Guard.
 
willlucv said:
@Space Crusader Absolutely! Don't get me wrong I've happily stripped hundreds of models for repainting, but I have sometimes given them a reprieve when the basic paintwork is sound. I do own some Space Marines which were really beautifully painted (Space Wolves and Blood Ravens) by someone else which will just get based in my style to be pressed into service whilst I continue painting more Imperial Guard.
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That's a pretty decent approach. I have a nice fleet of old Citadel "League" space cruisers; the ones that got repurposed as Tyranid drones and whatnot. They're pretty darn well painted, really. I'm tempted to add a few markings and details and rebase them to make them consistent. Probably a good approach. (I'm figuring on using them as Slann spacecraft, ironically. They've got a nice internal consistency and a pretty good range of sizes if you stick to the ones form the SCL range.
 
@symphonicpoet I was vaguely aware of that range, how cool are they? Love the blatantly Blake's Seven Liberator based model, interesting that some of them ended up repurposed for Battlefleet Gothic.

Regarding painting and stripping I went through a long phase of never being satisfied with what I'd painted (some of my models have been painted and stripped several times since I first bought them. I finally developed a style and a quality I was happy with about fifteen years ago and haven't really had to repaint anything since (I'm still happy with the quality of my old paintwork).
 
willlucv said:
@symphonicpoet I was vaguely aware of that range, how cool are they? Love the blatantly Blake's Seven Liberator based model, interesting that some of them ended up repurposed for Battlefleet Gothic.

Regarding painting and stripping I went through a long phase of never being satisfied with what I'd painted (some of my models have been painted and stripped several times since I first bought them. I finally developed a style and a quality I was happy with about fifteen years ago and haven't really had to repaint anything since (I'm still happy with the quality of my old paintwork).
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I'm pretty much the same with the scale models I build - I finally got to the point were I'm happy with them a few years ago (after about 15 years of building LOL! Now if I only say the same about my mini painting. :roll:
 
Some paint is just resistant to every effort to remove it. Short of short blasting I don't know? These oldhammer Bret's. Nothing will touch it.
IMG_20260626_111208631_MFNR.jpg
 
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