The Strippening

Well folks, I got there in the end. Took me roughly five hours spread over four days and two litres of Simple Green™ but all of my Khador models have been thoroughly cleansed of their old paint jobs.


Naturally I must post about it for future internet achaeologists to puzzle over. Who was this strange beardy man? Why was he holding a toothbrush like that?

So if you haven't done a mass stripping of models before, this might well be informative. Or at least mildly entertaining.


STEP ONE, THINGS YOU WILL NEED.

Black aprons are so in this season

An appropriately dashing cleansing uniform! I found an apron to be pretty useful as stuff flicked everywhere during the frenzied scrubbing. Rubber gloves are also your friend here, as Simple Green™ will otherwise leave your unprotected meat digits looking and feeling like mummified prunes. Also an old toothbrush, for the actual scrubbing. PRO TIP: don't use it again afterwards.

How can she not be excited?? It's just so piney fresh!!

Here is my beautiful assistant posing with the Simple Green™ that I got from the local home depot store. 

A red bucket would have gone faster, but we use what we have.

You will also need a well ventilated bathroom or workspace, a bucket, a secondary container (not shown) for working in if you're going through a lot of models at once, and the ability to sit by yourself scrubbing little metal robots like a crazy person for extended periods of time.


STEP TWO: GIVE IT A BIT OF A SOAK, JIMMY.

It's a metaphor for human existence. 

All of the models! Into the bucket! Easy! 

This isn't a metaphor. It's just a bucket.

 Dump two litres of piney fresh Simple Green™ on top! Give it a bit of a stir!

Kinda like the Manawatu River. OH NEW ZEALAND IN-JOKE TIME.

THE NEXT DAY. Oh look it's gone dark and dubious looking! That's how you know the magic's happened.


STEP THREE: GETTING JIGGY WITH IT. (nah nah nah nah nah-nah-nah nah)

Mmmm sludgetastic 

It dissolves fake snow! It dissolves super glue! The models came apart as I cleaned them! This was okay, as I planned to repose a bunch of stuff. But I did have to be careful not to lose any tiny fiddly bits in the increasing amounts of sludgey muck accumulating in the bottom of the tub.

"Rubber duckie, you're the one..."

Here is an exciting action shot of some models in the tub. I kept most in the bucket soaking, but tipped a bit of Simple Green™ into the secondary tub to facilitate the scrubbing process. I really can't stress enough at this point, wear gloves. 

"Dude. Where the fuck are my limbs?"

This is what was left of the Behemoth after a vigourous scrub. The rest of it was sitting in the tub, it just came apart pins and all. Simple Green™, DON'T MESS WITH IT FOLKS. 

STEP FOUR: WALLOW IN YOUR NEW MINIS

The bitter aftermath of the piney fresh destruction

Make sure you clean all your bits with soapy water to get rid of any Simple Green™ residue! I hear it can mess up your undercoat and painting otherwise. SAFETY FIRST KIDS. 

As you can see, there are still some bits of red paint in the nooks and crannies of some of the models, that would frankly have taken more hours to get rid of than I was willing to put in. My tactic is to scrape off a bit more with a knife during assembly stage (it comes off pretty easily) and then if there's any tiny bits still showing in recesses after undercoating, just use some watered down black paint to mask them off.

Get your jack pieces here! We got big ones! And, uh... more big ones!

Important after doing a huge batch! Go through all your parts and make sure you haven't lost anything. I used a colander to pan through all the sludge and crap like a gold miner before throwing the Simple Green away, and I found quite a few tiny metal spikey bits and other little parts that had fallen off. Amazingly (for me) I managed not to lose a single piece during the cleaning, pretty much because I was anal retentively thorough. 

He likes long walks in the park and throwing shit into other shit

Aaaaaand here's the Kodiak ready to go. Pinned, cleaned, glued and undercoated.

He just likes killing people. What a bastard.

 Aaaaaaand here's a blurry photo of the Butcher, likewise all ready to be painted. VICTORY FOR THE MOTHERLAND.