Striping models with PVC-cleaner

Today I will show you how I get the paint off some metal and plastic models.

Used items:

- Mellerud PVC Cleaner (Technical Data)
- Old plastic box
- toothbrush
- surgical gloves

Step 1:

Fill the PVC cleaner in the box. Or use a jar if you only want to strip of a small amount of models. Put those models in and let them rest. 12-24h should be enough.

Step 2: Take one model out and use the tootbrush to scrap the paint off. If you don't want to have sprinkles all over the room or in the cleaner, use the kitchen sink or another plastic box filled with water. Hold the miniature under water, brush over it.

That should do the job nicely.

Here are some pictures. I threw my badly primed walkers and some warlocks, seers, maugan and some other miniatures into my IKEA storrage box and poured the PVC cleaner over them.



Maugan before I tortured him with the brush.



Maugan Ra after gettint some brush-love.



My badly primed walkers, as you can see I started brushing the primer of some days ago.



~95+% of the primer went off rather easily. Sadly most of the magnets from the hardpoints came off too, seems like the cleaner weakens the super glue.



And here is the total result of my cleaning session up to now: 1 upper body from a walker, maugan, 8 seer&locks, 4 old shees and 3 guardians (2xmetal, one plastic).

Warwalker + Magnets = saved money

Anybody who stayed with this hobby for one than one edition knows the game: GW will very likely push those units in a codex, who don't work or rather sell that good. And sometimes they nerf down some choices.

For example Starcannons, who where the bane of any MEQ units back in ed3 and early ed4 days thanks to 3 shots and a rather low price. Anybody who glued those guns on their falcon turrets either ripped them off again or put the whole falcon back in the showcase, hoping for a revival with the next eldar codex.

Back when I started sketching out my eldar force, I made the following decision: swapable weapons are a must, regardless of the unit carrying them.

Magnetising Serpents and Falcons is rather easy, as you can see in this blog. Warwalkers are somehow tricky, that's why some people use pins for them. I first thought about following their approach, but last week I stumbled over a post in a german board and the solution offered there may not look as neat as the "drill&pin" one.

The original solution was something like this:

1. cut a part out of the frame, which holds the weapon in place. It should be large enough to fit a small magnet. Fill the frame with greenstuff and put the magnet into the hole you cut.

2. clip off the connector of from the weapon, use a file to smooth the surface.

3. Use the metal part from filing fastener, clip it down into small stripes.

3. Glue those stripes underneath your weapons, where you clipped off the connector.

Well, I'm lazy and I already cut myself twice yesterday while removing all the casting seams from my walkers, so I found a more rustical approach. I can't offer you any decent pictures, because I don't own a decent digital camera and my mobile phone doesn't work very well without sufficant daylight (it's 11 pm here in germany now).

1. I clipped of both the connector from the underside of the weapon and the frame from the mount using a side cutter.

2. I filed both down, creating a smooth surface.

3. I glued a stripe of thin metal (cut off from a filing fastener) underneath the weapon and a 3x1mm round neodyme magnet onto the filed down mount.


















And that how it looks like without the guns attached...you can see the round magnet glued onto the filed down mount.
















The walker with the weapons attached...I hope that small tutorial was easy enough to understand even without any decent pictures from the work steps.

Cheers, Karnstein