Paint stripping final

It's with great pleasure that I can announce that all of the historic Dettol jars have finally been emptied. 

The new nail varnish remover solution made it a dream to breeze through these toxic jars. I didn't write off any more jeans or toothbrushes either which is a bonus.

 The 1 litre bottle cost around £8 from eBay and was totally worth it.

I loooovvve this old Dwarf figure. I knew I had him somewhere in the toxic jars so was delighted to find him again.

He deserves to be a hero like Balin or someone.

Another beautiful old figure, pretty sure this is an old Perry Citadel sculpt.

Lone wolf citadel captain.

These old figures have a charm long forgotten.

This is a great Nick Lund Dwarf. It has his hallmark stamped all over it and has a great character.

An Asgard Dwarf with the characteristic stunning detail.

 

It was now time to start on the last jar...the Dark elves.

The Perry's did an amazing job designing these figures. The aesthetic of these characters would set the style of this race, that can still be seen even to this day.

Witch elf berserker with a two handed sword.

An evil wizard.

A classic! Mengel Manhide.

More stunning Dark elves. I fell in love with these figures as a teenager. Later in life I made it my goal to collect a force of them.

Before the Dark elves came the Night elf box set. It was in this box that the blue print for the later Dark elves was formed.

Here it can be clearly seen how the earlier Night elves became the later Dark elves. Armour and stylewize these figures are very close.

Also the use of crossbows that would become the Dark elf staple, first appeared in these earlier sculpts.

This was a real delight, these metal Transformers when stripped, revealed much more detail. The thick enamel covered all the tiny face details. This led to me grabbing all of the others and throwing them into the solution.

The gun detail too is good, definitely worth a dip.

This Dark elf musician brings back a lot of memories from a more carefree age.

A mucky couple of days but worth it. All the Dettol jars are now empty.

The big rubber gloves were such a good buy from eBay. They really made a difference when scrubbing these sharp little metal pieces. It's not wise to get any of the solutions on your skin and with thinner gloves, this tends to happen. They soon become holed and ware away exposing the skin.

Sideswipe in his thick enamel coat. This stuff covered his detailed head and gun details.

More improved Autobots.

Arcee shows an amazing improvement after the varnish remover. Tiny, faint details can now be made out.

Great figure showing newly revieled detail.

After the success of the others, prowl and Wheeljack were thrown into the solution. Once in, I topped up the solution so it just covered the figures.

They started to peel after a few moments.

Enamel covered figures...before their swim.

The field of battle.

The Dark elf masses. 

Paint Stripping continued

Right, phase two. No more messing around! A big pair of mad scientist gloves arrived from eBay, along with some nail varnish remover. This stuff is very good and got straight to work. The thick brown goo slid off with hardly any effort. It became a nice clean job again rather than up to my elbows to toxic waste.

I did find one or two figures that had been pitted by the Dettol. These might have been at the heart of the gunk. They also could of been among some of the first figures I put in there, many years ago. They are still very useful, it's nothing like the dreaded lead rot of a few years ago.

Shiny pennies from heaven. The good thing about the varnish remover is it cleans the toothbrushes too. The solution evaporates so you don't have to dry them with a rag. If when dry they still have areas of paint, just throw them back in the pot for a spell. 

You can see from the photo above, a few of the figures appeared to be slightly corroded. A slight pitting into the metal. This isn't too bad and can be hidden with paint but interesting to note.

 As I say, some of these figures must have been in the Dettol for at least five years. So maybe the solution can effect them over a period of time after all. I won't be leaving them in there for so long next time.

A rewarding morning's work. I think some of the last batch done with the brush cleaner, could go back in this new solution to a swim. Just to get them extra sparkly.

Paint stripping

I've acquired a few pots of eBay figures sitting in their paint stripping Dettol. Over the years these pots have been opened and added to many times...but never emptied. I knew there was a wealth of old mini's in them, I just could never find time to clean them all. Well, when a jar got knocked on its side and leaked, it was time to remind myself of what I had squirreled away all those years ago.

A dirty, sticky, god awful job that had been put off too long.

I wasn't too worried about the lead sitting in the solution, however a thick paint gunge had built up at the bottom. A lot of the figures were covered in this thick goo. I had thought that five plus years sitting in Dettol would have them all coming out like new pennies. This was of course not the case and a lot of scrubbing was needed.

Casting my mind back all those years ago, I think I tried to make the Dettol go further by watering it down. This obviously effected the power of the solution. After working into the dark of evening, brushing away, I thought it best to start again the next day.

Daylight revealed that the darkness had hidden the results, the figures were still pretty manky. It was a terrible, messy job which saw the end of a pair of jeans and a number of old toothbrushes.

After this set back I left the idea of the Dettol and reached for the brush cleaner. This solution repaired the gummed up toothbrushes and also started to make a visual difference on the figures too 

The brush cleaner proved a better choice and shiny lead figures started to appear.

At last I was starting to see results. I have ordered some nail varnish remover too, which I have heard good things about.

Some very old Citadel figures come back to life.

One of my favourite figures of all time, this Dark elf guard emerged from his enamel tomb.

Scrubbed with Dettol in the dark...

Scrubbed with brush cleaner in the light of day. It really does help to actually see what you're doing...

I look forward to trying out the nail varnish remover.