Thread: Need help stripping paint and removing glue

First off guys: I'm in China, so please don't recommend I go down to my local hobby shop for stuff. I have hardware stores and grocery stores though.

SO! I have my models back from the states, and I need to strip the paint and primer from them, since I did a terrible job on many of them and want to change my paint scheme on others. So, I've looked around and read that brake fluid and pinesol are good at removing paint. I can get brake fluid here, but I'm not sure about pinesol. Does anyone else have any recommendations? Have you used these before? How long should they soak? All my models are metal.

ALSO, since brake fluid will eat through the plastic bases my metal models are on, does anyone have any recommendations for how to easily break down the glue?

Basically, I need to get the models off their bases, then strip the paint off them and reprime+paint them. Thanks for any help you guys can give me!

I'm not going to mail order new bases to China.

Good to know about brake parts cleaner, I might be able to find that. Oddly enough, the Chinese haven't really started to realize that taking care of your car is a good idea. Most people don't know how a car works or how to maintain it. Car repair is stupid cheap too.

Dude, yes! Awesome!

For whatever its worth I use pine cleaner. I throw a few figures in a jar with the pine cleaner and next morning use a tooth brush to scrub off the paint. I do not recommend using pine cleaner with plastic though. The pine cleaner will soften the plastic.

Originally Posted by whill4

The pine cleaner will soften the plastic.

With pinesol -- if you pull the plastics out before 6-8 hours, you should be ok. They might still be a little softer but anything after that ~8 hour is going to be softened for sure.

Simple Green works on everything and doesn't melt plastics. I recently used it on some plastics -- it doesn't do to well with the GW Black primer. you have to soak it for a very long time.

Would any of those methods work for enamels? Or does anyone have any other suggestions?

Does Simple Green soften plastic?