So I'd like to do a repaint for the AF MK2. Looking to take the paint of an A-10 warthog with the Shark mouth. Probably do a grey tone overall. Add more engines.

To be honest I hate the ship design. One engine?!? Come on! The wings are just dumb. Some intern just took a Nebulan B distorted the scale of the front & back, curved the bottom pods and added some wings.

If anyone has some mods/repaints to their AF MKII please post!

Should I strip the paint first? If so with what? I've heard FFG's paint is hard to get off.

FFGs paint is easy to get off when you know what it is.

if you prime correctly, I’m 90% of cases, you can paint over the original.

For me however, the Assault Frigate was the 10% of the time that I needed to go down to bare plastic, but YMMV.

Never stripped an FFG model. What's the best method?

9 hours ago, Draconis80 said:

So I'd like to do a repaint for the AF MK2. Looking to take the paint of an A-10 warthog with the Shark mouth. Probably do a grey tone overall. Add more engines.

To be honest I hate the ship design. One engine?!? Come on! The wings are just dumb. Some intern just took a Nebulan B distorted the scale of the front & back, curved the bottom pods and added some wings.

If anyone has some mods/repaints to their AF MKII please post!

Should I strip the paint first? If so with what? I've heard FFG's paint is hard to get off.

You could get Mel's Mk2 Mk2 https://www.shapeways.com/product/LD4L9N4JD/armada-assault-frigate-mk2-v2?optionId=99441736

7 hours ago, Draconis80 said:

Never stripped an FFG model. What's the best method?

... Only if you promise to give your AF some love, rather than the dismissive hate 🙂

Essentially, the paint that’s used is a variety of bake-on latex based paint that’s been used for years in the industry for its wear properties.

Basically, that leaves you two options to remove it. Either Isopropyl Alcohol, or Acetone.

Now, essentially, both are varying degrees of noxious. Of the two, I recommend 98% ISO, which if not at your big chain hardware store can generally be found behind the counter at your local pharmacy/drug store.

Soak it overnight, scrub with an old toothbrush. Wear nitrile gloves if you can, as it will dehydrate your skin horrendously - to the point of cracking and bleeding after a while in some people.

Acetone is quicker, needing only a dip and shake to do most of the work, but it comes with a risk - evens little bit too long and you’ll start melting plastic on some kinds of plastic. On others it’s okay unless I soak. Heroclix figures can be quickly stripped that way. But again, totally noxious and even more so than Alcohol.

For removing baked on latex paint, those are really your options without doing immediate serious damage to yourself or the underlying model.

If you are going that method, use the Alcohol.

8 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

... Only if you promise to give your AF some love, rather than the dismissive hate 🙂

Essentially, the paint that’s used is a variety of bake-on latex based paint that’s been used for years in the industry for its wear properties.

Basically, that leaves you two options to remove it. Either Isopropyl Alcohol, or Acetone.

Now, essentially, both are varying degrees of noxious. Of the two, I recommend 98% ISO, which if not at your big chain hardware store can generally be found behind the counter at your local pharmacy/drug store.

Soak it overnight, scrub with an old toothbrush. Wear nitrile gloves if you can, as it will dehydrate your skin horrendously - to the point of cracking and bleeding after a while in some people.

Acetone is quicker, needing only a dip and shake to do most of the work, but it comes with a risk - evens little bit too long and you’ll start melting plastic on some kinds of plastic. On others it’s okay unless I soak. Heroclix figures can be quickly stripped that way. But again, totally noxious and even more so than Alcohol.

For removing baked on latex paint, those are really your options without doing immediate serious damage to yourself or the underlying model.

If you are going that method, use the Alcohol.

Are you sure this is still always the case? I personally use 99% isopropyl alcohol (easily obtainable via e.g. Amazon as nail art supply in cheap 1l bottles), and it works well on many X-Wing and Armada models. I usually leave the models in a pure alcohol bath (in an old jam glass with a tight lid) over night, and then scrub them with an old toothbrush the next day. But many models in the later waves of X-Wing (and probably also Armada) seem to use another type of paint. Sometimes it even changes when a model is reprinted.

I repainted my ARCs and a couple of A-Wings last year ( *cough* ) and decided to strip them beforehand. I never managed to remove any of the color on my ARCs (only the wash came off), even after days of marinating in alcohol. And even stranger, some A-Wings stripped down easily after an overnight bath, and some (presumably recently produced ones) behaved just like the Arcs - couldn't strip any color, just removed the wash. Sometimes you can (I think) see which ones will strip beforehand - the newer, resistant color seems to be a tad thinner...

I haven't been courageous enough to try acetone yet, fearing that my models will just dissolve...

(btw, Simple Greens "magic ingredients" are alcohol and soap, so don't worry if you live outside of the US and always read about it's awesome capabilities without being able to buy it yourself... )

Edit - PS: Follow Drasnightas warning guys - wear nitril or latex gloves, whatever suits you! Its the safe and healthy way!

Isopropyl has always stripped everything for me down to the bare. The only thing I needed to actually strip were the AFs though, there was something with its surface that was causing my primer to do some... very funny things.

As a very old school modeller, I keep forgetting that there's things I do that I just do, and take for granted forgetting that people don't do that anymore... (I mean, I still soap and water everything - even and especially sprues before assembly and paint)

If they have changed paint formulation, then I can't say - but at least on the Armada side, I've not had anything (even the most recent MC75s) not resist the Iso.

Vykes has done some amazing mods/repaint on MKII

Dras has too, but Photobucket has eaten his homework... 😭

some of us less talented painters did post some repaints. Personally my 4th has been dismantled, the ugly pod hanging under it eliminated, and all wings inverted. It is now black primed and awaiting its "tweety" repaint. I may post a photo here if I can get back my camera from the mess that is my post-holiday-return-apartment is...

On 5/24/2019 at 2:33 AM, TallGiraffe said:

You could get Mel's Mk2 Mk2 https://www.shapeways.com/product/LD4L9N4JD/armada-assault-frigate-mk2-v2?optionId=99441736

For $150 in the detail I get my models in, no thanks. But that design is 10 times better than FFG'S. I'll have to use spare plastic parts and glue. Thanks so much!

27 minutes ago, Draconis80 said:

For $150 in the detail I get my models in, no thanks. But that design is 10 times better than FFG'S. I'll have to use spare plastic parts and glue. Thanks so much!

The 30$ option doesn’t look that bad.

On 5/31/2019 at 11:48 PM, gounour said:

Dras has too, but Photobucket has eaten his homework... 😭

Only the homework I wasn't proud of.

On 5/24/2019 at 5:50 PM, Drasnighta said:

Isopropyl has always stripped everything for me down to the bare. The only thing I needed to actually strip were the AFs though, there was something with its surface that was causing my primer to do some... very funny things.

As a very old school modeller, I keep forgetting that there's things I do that I just do, and take for granted forgetting that people don't do that anymore... (I mean, I still soap and water everything - even and especially sprues before assembly and paint)

If they have changed paint formulation, then I can't say - but at least on the Armada side, I've not had anything (even the most recent MC75s) not resist the Iso.

Just to add to this discussion - I finally did my first larger ship repaint. Appropriately for this thread I chose my Assault Frigate MKII in preparation for the German Nationals this weekend. 99% Isopropyl worked perfectly, I just brushed it on with an old toothbrush and everything came right off after a moment (luckily - the model is a bit too unwieldy for my usual jar of iso... ;)).

20 hours ago, TheWampa said:

Just to add to this discussion - I finally did my first larger ship repaint. Appropriately for this thread I chose my Assault Frigate MKII in preparation for the German Nationals this weekend. 99% Isopropyl worked perfectly, I just brushed it on with an old toothbrush and everything came right off after a moment (luckily - the model is a bit too unwieldy for my usual jar of iso... ;)).

That Frigate looks amazing

4 minutes ago, TallGiraffe said:

That Frigate looks amazing

Thanks! Wish me luck, games start in 90 minutes!