Title.

DO NOT USE BRAKE FLUID!!! It will eat up the glue in all series and will wreck the resin that newer models are made of. My M3A was barely salvageable after a night bathing in it.

My first attempt was with the tried and true Simple Green. Didn't make a scratch.

I use 91% Isopropyl Alcohol to strip everything now.

For some of the ships it only takes off the wash or takes some serious work with a blunt drybrush to get the factory paint off(Rebel Aces, Z-95's). Others it eats right down to the resin without harming it, like YT-1300's, every TIE series I've tried so far, E-Wings and such.

I use a sonic cleaner from Harbor Freight that ran about $35. Fill it just enough with the 91% IPA to cover whichever ship(or most of it at least for larger ships) and run the 3 minute cycle a few times. After rubbing off the majority of wash/paint I submerge the models again and run the cycle again a few times, rinse and repeat as needed.

A few notes:

When using alcohol or solvents with brushes, only use nylon or taklon brushes. Natural hair brushes will get destroyed and will fall apart quickly.

When cleaning use a firm short bristle brush like a drybrush. I use cheap taklon brushes that I've cut down to only about 1/4" so that it's very firm but covers a wide area to brush the paint off.

When cleaning, use a small cup of clean alcohol to keep the brush clean and to wipe clear small bits of paint that end up moved around on the model. I find the front plastic cover from the blister packs works well for this and since it's alcohol they can be emptied and wiped clean for reuse.

Some models you'll only get the wash off of, but usually that is all you need. For my Decimator I found the factory wash had a TON of lint dried into it, and am still in the process of hand cleaning the wash off of it so that repainting is on a clean surface. The QA for the factory paint is kind of terrible in that regard.

I do find it irritating that between releases both the resin and paint materials have changed, meaning you end up with varied results when cleaning models for repaint. I'm not sure if these changes are the same through reprints of older releases, as I do not have any metric to really gauge that by. You'd need someone who has definitive first and current print versions of the same ships to verify.

Tamiya laquer thinner

I seen demol as a good options. Yah it works great. Let my falcon soak for 3 days and the paint came right off. But the smell. Its been 3 months and the strong disinfected smell fills the room every time I take the model out of its case. Will have to try this sonic cleaner next.

Simple Green took about half the paint off a few of my models quickly enough. You don't need to strip the whole model, just get the wash layer and outermost layer and you should be fine.

I'm not sure what the factory uses for paint because some paint is very stubborn (like the base coat on one of my Falcons) and other paint seems to come off just by looking at it (the cockpit glass of my Xwings). The paint on my Bwings came off like it was held on with just static after about 10 minutes in Simple Green and rinsed with an old toothbrush. They came out almost bare.

Like I said, their QA and QC for paint is terrible. Changing mediums seemingly at random affects our ability to strip and repaint the models. None of my ships were any good in Simple Green, and even alcohol doesn't chip some of the ships paint(but works on every wash so far).

Sometimes it seems like the paint is baked into the resin, other times you look at it hard enough and it falls off.

It's almost annoying enough that I wish they'd offer direct sale of non painted versions just so I don't have to spend so much time fixing their paint.

I did a test today on the standard A-Wing- Simple Green, Pine-Sol, and finally Winsor and Newton Brush Cleaner.

-Simple Green/Pin-Sol- both were really good at taking off the wash. If it even budged the paint a little, I didn't notice it.

-Winsor and Newton Brush Cleaner- I've seen multiple tutorials about using this, so decided to try it myself. I started sparingly- booooooy howdy, I'm glad I did. It took the wash off upon brush application. After leaving it on for less than a minute, the grey panel paint finally started to budge. After some more waiting and rubbing with a cleaner-soaked q-tip, the red finally started to go. Awesome, progress!

Well... not so fast. I had the bright idea to run it under some warm water to help clear off the quickly gunky-paint. Well the water seems to react with the cleaner and solidify the paint, making a tacky mess. Not good. I quickly soaked another q-tip in the cleaner, and re-applied. The gooey mess came up off on the q-tip no problem. I spent another five or so minutes using a q-tip to clean up the remaining goo, alternating between a dry and lightly-cleaner soaked swab.

Once the goo was all up, and I could see the panel lines were clean, I grabbed some Ajax brand liquid dishwasher cleaner and applied it directly to the model. I scrubbed the model down, and the goo came up with little trouble. A little rinse in some running water and everything came off. I was left with a nice, clean bright white A-wing.

Lessons learned: If the model has a thin coat of paint, you might consider just cleaning off the wash with either Simple Green or Pine-Sol or something similar, base coating and painting. Or skipping base coating. Whatever you prefer.

If the model has a rather thick coat of paint, or you're like me and just prefer to start from a non-painted model, Windsor and Newton Brush Cleaner works really well- just use it sparingly. While it didn't melt the model on mine, I think given enough time and saturation, it would begin to eat at the model plastic. I removed the A-Wing lasers, just in the event the thin plastic reacted with the solvent.
So there you go. Hope that helps!

Well... not so fast. I had the bright idea to run it under some warm water to help clear off the quickly gunky-paint. Well the water seems to react with the cleaner and solidify the paint, making a tacky mess. Not good. I quickly soaked another q-tip in the cleaner, and re-applied. The gooey mess came up off on the q-tip no problem. I spent another five or so minutes using a q-tip to clean up the remaining goo, alternating between a dry and lightly-cleaner soaked swab.

I had this issue after using a heavy duty dish degreaser that has warnings all over the labels. I used gloves but the smell still bothered my throat and lungs.

It took most of the paint off but what remained on a Falcon and Firespray was the tacky mess you described, I took most of that off with an Xacto knife and warm water.

For my last round of primed ships I didn't take any paint off, I just primed right over it. It was too nice a day outside to waste on stripping first.

I had this issue after using a heavy duty dish degreaser that has warnings all over the labels. I used gloves but the smell still bothered my throat and lungs.

It took most of the paint off but what remained on a Falcon and Firespray was the tacky mess you described, I took most of that off with an Xacto knife and warm water.

I thought I might have to sand/hobby knife off the gunk, but the Ajax dishwashing liquid did a real good job of getting it off the model. I was pretty pleased with the results, as you can see above (finally figured out embedding an image).

On 4/28/2015 at 5:23 AM, Aerethan said:

DO NOT USE BRAKE FLUID!!! It will eat up the glue in all series and will wreck the resin that newer models are made of. My M3A was barely salvageable after a night bathing in it.

My first attempt was with the tried and true Simple Green. Didn't make a scratch.

I use 91% Isopropyl Alcohol to strip everything now.

For some of the ships it only takes off the wash or takes some serious work with a blunt drybrush to get the factory paint off(Rebel Aces, Z-95's). Others it eats right down to the resin without harming it, like YT-1300's, every TIE series I've tried so far, E-Wings and such.

I use a sonic cleaner from Harbor Freight that ran about $35. Fill it just enough with the 91% IPA to cover whichever ship(or most of it at least for larger ships) and run the 3 minute cycle a few times. After rubbing off the majority of wash/paint I submerge the models again and run the cycle again a few times, rinse and repeat as needed.

A few notes:

When using alcohol or solvents with brushes, only use nylon or taklon brushes. Natural hair brushes will get destroyed and will fall apart quickly.

When cleaning use a firm short bristle brush like a drybrush. I use cheap taklon brushes that I've cut down to only about 1/4" so that it's very firm but covers a wide area to brush the paint off.

When cleaning, use a small cup of clean alcohol to keep the brush clean and to wipe clear small bits of paint that end up moved around on the model. I find the front plastic cover from the blister packs works well for this and since it's alcohol they can be emptied and wiped clean for reuse.

Some models you'll only get the wash off of, but usually that is all you need. For my Decimator I found the factory wash had a TON of lint dried into it, and am still in the process of hand cleaning the wash off of it so that repainting is on a clean surface. The QA for the factory paint is kind of terrible in that regard.

I do find it irritating that between releases both the resin and paint materials have changed, meaning you end up with varied results when cleaning models for repaint. I'm not sure if these changes are the same through reprints of older releases, as I do not have any metric to really gauge that by. You'd need someone who has definitive first and current print versions of the same ships to verify.

I’m about to try some original T-65’s using your method with the sonic cleaner and 91% Isoprophyl Alcohol. Have you done any T-65s with success? I’m concerned about the cannons.

1 hour ago, drail14me said:

I’m about to try some original T-65’s using your method with the sonic cleaner and 91% Isoprophyl Alcohol. Have you done any T-65s with success? I’m concerned about the cannons.

I regularly use 99% Isopropanol/Isopropyl Alcohol to strip acrylic color from X-Wing and Armada models. Sometimes they stay in it for days. Nothing bad has ever happened. Worst case the factory color won't come off ( which is normal for all newer production lines! ). I bought 1000 ml for less than 10 EUR on Amazon in a nice bottle, just look for Nail Art stuff.

I own a collection of 5 A-Wings . Some of them from older production batches, some from the aces pack, some newer reprints. Approximately around the production of the aces box they changed the color formula, now the only thing that will come off is some of the black/dark wash. The older models usually stripped down to the plastic after some days in the alcohol and some brushing with an old toothbrush. In my experience this is true for A-Wings, Y-Wings and B-Wings. Haven't tested other models yet.

On the bright side: The newer paint is MUCH thinner, even on older models. So stripping it isn't really necessary, not even on an A-Wing with its thin panel lines.

If anybody knows a save method to strip the current factory color without melting the model in the process please let me know! (and no, Green Stuff won't work better as far as I know, because its main active ingredient is alcohol - but much less % than my 99% isopropanol can offer)

PS: Use gloves when you work with alcohol! And open a window!

PPS: I use a marmalade jar to soak my models, because it comes with a rather airtight lid. Once there are too many color flakes and goo in the alcohol I usually just run the stuff through a simple paper coffee filter into another mug and then reuse it.

I've have good luck with a soak in isopropyl alcohol and an old toothbrush.

There's a fairly informative video on YouTube somewhere about using a product called Purple Power. Some heavy degreaser or something. Didn't affect the plastic, resin, or metal negatively. Was capable of breaking down super glue with prolonged exposure. Required very little toothbrush work by the looks of it. When next I go to do a project like this I'll probably use that.

Maybe im lazy or stupid or both - I just paint over the factory colors. At some spots paint is not sticking at first, but that is maybe 1% of the surface for what I have seen so far.

This is a family friendly forum and not the place to be asking for a good stripper.

53 minutes ago, Boba Rick said:

This is a family friendly forum and not the place to be asking for a good stripper.

Well I gotta find one somewhere.

I use 91% ipa well when I wind up having to remove paint as well. Good stiff brush and effort. I hadn't started removing paint from mine yet as I'm deciding on my squads color patterns.

If anything is able to dissolve super glue / cyanoacrylates you should be careful - there is a good chance it contains acetone ("nail polish"), which will also dissolve your small plastic spaceship...

Alcohol won't do a thing to it, superglue is highly resistant against it...

23 hours ago, TheWampa said:

If anything is able to dissolve super glue / cyanoacrylates you should be careful - there is a good chance it contains acetone ("nail polish"), which will also dissolve your small plastic spaceship...

Alcohol won't do a thing to it, superglue is highly resistant against it...

Here's what four X-Wings look like after 10 minutes in a sonic cleaner with 91% IPA. I'm guessing that one X-Wing is from the latest re-print with different paint. Also note, two cannons came off so either the IPA or the sonic vibrations broke the glue bond.

I have Stormy Daniels strip my paint. It’s the best.

I've repainted a lot of ships, in both X-Wing and Armada, and I've never bothered with paint-stripping. I don't bother with primer or seal-coats, with the exception of Armada squadrons which start unpainted.

Now, with old metal miniatures like GW, there you have to strip and clean and paint and heavily seal-coat, because the material and the weight of the miniature and the way they are handled often results in paints eventually wearing and chipping. But I've never had that problem with FFG ships, so I don't see a reason to spend time or money stripping, priming, or sealing.

19 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

I've repainted a lot of ships, in both X-Wing and Armada, and I've never bothered with paint-stripping. I don't bother with primer or seal-coats, with the exception of Armada squadrons which start unpainted.

Now, with old metal miniatures like GW, there you have to strip and clean and paint and heavily seal-coat, because the material and the weight of the miniature and the way they are handled often results in paints eventually wearing and chipping. But I've never had that problem with FFG ships, so I don't see a reason to spend time or money stripping, priming, or sealing.

I don't strip them either until now. Never done it so wanted to try. Curious to see if I can tell the difference afterwards.

Here's a side by side of an un-stripped and a stripped primed and painted ship.The X-wing on the left is the one from my earlier post that did not come clean in the 91% IPA. The one on the right came completely clean. Although subtle, I can tell the difference in the fine detail. The one on the right has much sharper detail. It's especially noticeable in the cockpit and along the side of the fuselage. At this scale though, it won't be really noticeable once the paint job is complete and it's on the table for a game.