Dettol

Telchar · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 11:24 am

So, I've just got myself a bottle of dettol for stripping (plastic) mini's, but I also have some questions: How do you use it? Do you thin it or not? Do you brush it on or do you soak the mini's? If you soak them, for how long?

Any help (and other good advice) would be much appreciated.

Eaothen-the-brave · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:15 pm

Hi there,
Dettol works great for me! And you can both use it on plastic and metal miniatures (don't know about finecast).
So, here's how you use it, take a plastic box, like those who have ice cream in it, depends on how many models you want to strip.
Just pore in the Dettol, you don't have to water it down, oh well, I don't do that, don't know about anyone else..
Let the models soak for about a day, it'll take a while. Once you decide to strip them, just put them under running water, most of the paint will run of this way, if not, like in corners, or places covered with mail etc, you could use an old toothbrush, be careful with plastic models, they'll break easily this way (like Rohan spears and such).

After you stripped them, let them soak in water for a while, so all of the Dettol will be gone. Also, don't start painting them immediately, let them rest for a day (or two) after you've put them in water, just to make sure everything's gone.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Jorn.

Telchar · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:19 pm

Eaothen-the-brave wrote:

Hi there,
Dettol works great for me! And you can both use it on plastic and metal miniatures (don't know about finecast).
So, here's how you use it, take a plastic box, like those who have ice cream in it, depends on how many models you want to strip.
Just pore in the Dettol, you don't have to water it down, oh well, I don't do that, don't know about anyone else..
Let the models soak for about a day, it'll take a while. Once you decide to strip them, just put them under running water, most of the paint will run of this way, if not, like in corners, or places covered with mail etc, you could use an old toothbrush, be careful with plastic models, they'll break easily this way (like Rohan spears and such).

After you stripped them, let them soak in water for a while, so all of the Dettol will be gone. Also, don't start painting them immediately, let them rest for a day (or two) after you've put them in water, just to make sure everything's gone.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Jorn.

Thanks!

Does it still work when watered down (because that would save me a lot of dettol)?

Eaothen-the-brave · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:25 pm

Telchar wrote:

Eaothen-the-brave wrote:

Hi there,
Dettol works great for me! And you can both use it on plastic and metal miniatures (don't know about finecast).
So, here's how you use it, take a plastic box, like those who have ice cream in it, depends on how many models you want to strip.
Just pore in the Dettol, you don't have to water it down, oh well, I don't do that, don't know about anyone else..
Let the models soak for about a day, it'll take a while. Once you decide to strip them, just put them under running water, most of the paint will run of this way, if not, like in corners, or places covered with mail etc, you could use an old toothbrush, be careful with plastic models, they'll break easily this way (like Rohan spears and such).

After you stripped them, let them soak in water for a while, so all of the Dettol will be gone. Also, don't start painting them immediately, let them rest for a day (or two) after you've put them in water, just to make sure everything's gone.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Jorn.

Thanks!

Does it still work when watered down (because that would save me a lot of dettol)?

I'm not sure about that though, someone told me not to do it, but you could always try it on one model, that way you won't have to use too much Dettol (:

Tabletop_heroes · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 12:55 pm

I've had an amount of dettol in a plastic container for ages, you can reuse it many times. For those really hard to shift old paint jobs, after a couple of days dip in Dettol they go into a nail varnish dip too, those I've only used this for metal.

Telchar · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:24 pm

DO NOT USE NAIL VARNISH ON PLASTIC MODELS! After half an hour my dwarves had already lost quite a lot of detail. I still shudder to think what would have happened if I'd have let them stand overnight...

Thanks for the tip on reusing the Dettol.

MeatBoy1994 · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 3:50 pm

Dettol doesn't work on plastics!! It eats them!!

CaptainOfTheWhiteTower · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 4:11 pm

MeatBoy1994 wrote:

Dettol doesn't work on plastics!! It eats them!!

No it doesn't, I've dettoled many plastic models without issue. Brake Fluid would probably do that though.

Do NOT add any water to the dettol because it won't strip the paint anymore. Soak for about 24 hours. You can probably get away with just soaking overnight if need be. As for soaking significantly longer than 24hrs I can't comment because I've never soaked anything that long.

Its a great product, does the job.

Fishlegs · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 5:05 pm

I've left metal models in dettol for months and it's done them no harm. I reckon a bottle of dettol will do me 50 models at least.

Telchar · **Posted:** Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:15 pm

Fishlegs wrote:

I've left metal models in dettol for months and it's done them no harm. I reckon a bottle of dettol will do me 50 models at least.

What size of bottle? Because I sure do hope I can get more out of a 1 litre one!

Minimal Monkey Saddle · **Joined:** Wed Dec 09, 2009 8:55 pm **Posts:** 463

I use dettol for stripping metal and plastic typically leaving the minis to soak for a couple of days. I do find that the paint can turn into a very sticky black gloop and have to use washing up liquid to break it down. My one attempt at stripping finecast was a disaster as the resin went all soft and the paint wouldn't come off at all.

Fishlegs · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:54 am

Telchar wrote:

What size of bottle? Because I sure do hope I can get more out of a 1 litre one!

I'm pretty sure it was a half litre one. I've just dumped another 10 in from an ebay auction and the paint seems to be blistering already - not sure what the limit is.

Telchar · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 9:10 am

I'm now doing my second batch of 40+ mini's, it worked a charm on the first one, but some of the pieces I'd stuck on (eg I cut a Goblin's bow in half and stuck the leftover half in his other hand, to make him a drummer) came off. They weren't washed away though, thank God.

CaptainOfTheWhiteTower · **Posted:** Sat Apr 21, 2012 11:06 am

Minimal Monkey Saddle wrote:

I do find that the paint can turn into a very sticky black gloop

This happens to me too, tends to only happen in the deepest grooves though.

As for a 'limit' I don't think there is a limit as such unless you get water in the solution. Obviously because of all the paint coming off the mixture becomes very dark and murky and difficult to see what you've got in there. Thats usually why I start afresh rather than because the mixture has stopped stripping the paint.

Telchar · **Posted:** Sun Apr 22, 2012 10:14 am

CaptainOfTheWhiteTower wrote:

Minimal Monkey Saddle wrote:

I do find that the paint can turn into a very sticky black gloop

This happens to me too, tends to only happen in the deepest grooves though.

As for a 'limit' I don't think there is a limit as such unless you get water in the solution. Obviously because of all the paint coming off the mixture becomes very dark and murky and difficult to see what you've got in there. Thats usually why I start afresh rather than because the mixture has stopped stripping the paint.

I just had that happen with my rangers. The Italeri dark green I'd used turned into some kind of black paste that stuck all the toothbrush haires together and clogged up the cloak folds and was horrible to remove. yuk. But for Revell, Humbrol and Citadel paints it works nicely.

garmenhord · **Posted:** Sun Apr 22, 2012 9:06 pm

I think the black paste is the basecoat from the model - it's harder to remove a basecoat then the paint itself

Telchar · **Posted:** Tue Apr 24, 2012 3:09 pm

garmenhord wrote:

I think the black paste is the basecoat from the model - it's harder to remove a basecoat then the paint itself

Really? Because on my Gobbo's and Fellowship nothing happened.

Jobu · **Posted:** Tue Apr 24, 2012 4:51 pm

Over here in the states I can recommend Dawn Power Dissolver. I have used Pine-Sol and Simple Green on plastics and neither of them are as good. After soaking mini's overnight in this stuff the paint and primer nearly wash off with water alone. A short scrub and you are done. It did dissolve/soften the superglue bonding pieces together, so be careful. It is pricier, I purchased a 12 oz (@350 mL) bottle at Walmart for 3.35 or so. This stuff is like a gel and some of the paint sloughs off and stays in the gel. I have not seen it effect the potency yet.

boromir_of_ithilien · **Posted:** Tue Jul 31, 2012 12:32 am

Do any of you guys know any other solutions that can be used? For example, can vinegar strip paint?

SouthernDunedain · **Posted:** Tue Jul 31, 2012 5:39 pm

i tend to use acetone formula nail varnish remover for all my metals. I left one in for about 5 days once and it was fine. It will melt plastic if left for longer than a hour or so. dont really strip plastic models. I've heard fairy power spray is good for plastics, basically a washingup liquid version of detol.

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