Since I buy a fair number of poorly painted miniatures off eBay that I strip the paint off to repaint I also spend a fair bit of time removing the paint. Over the years I have tried a variety of different removal agents listed from mildest to most toxic / caustic: Simple Green, Rubbing alcohol, acrylic brush cleaner, Super Clean Purple, Poly-S paint remover, spray on paint remover or furniture stripper, acetone and lacquer thinner. The more toxic substances (oven cleaner, spray on paint remover and
Lacquer thinner) seem to work best but they are dangerous and unpleasant
to work with. Some cleaning liquids work better than others depending if the figure was primed with solvent based paint, or if enamel or acrylic paint was used and varnish. In terms of effectiveness balanced with not creating a
toxic hazard Super Clean Purple has become my go to choice, with oven
cleaner for really stubborn paint coats. You need to wear gloves with all of them plus adequate ventilation and / or a respirator mask for Oven Cleaner and the more toxic liquids. There is often a considerable amount of scrubbing that needs to be done with an old toothbrush or other stiff brush plus digging out paint from crevices with a dentists tool or etching tool. It also usually takes 6 to 24 hours including soaking time.
I was curious if the sonic cleaners I have read about would make the process easier. So I purchased
Magnasonic Professional Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner with Digital Timer and used it with purple Super Clean liquid in the bath to see how it would work on an old figure I wanted to strip.
