Greeting one and all,
Have you ever had a model that you wanted to repaint? Maybe you found a rare little find on the back shelf in a charity shop that's seen better days, or you won a “pro painted” off of eBay and now have to remove 3 inches of paint from it? You could reach for the Simple Green, Dettol, or Isopropyl Alcohol as we have all done now for so long; or you could reach for AK Paint Stripper.
Ak Paint Stripper is, in my opinion, the best paint remover I think I’ve ever used, and I think I’ve tried every method you can name over the last 24 years. The scent of the liquid isn’t too strong, but I would still suggest using it in a well-ventilated area. It comes in a 100ml plastic bottle with a rather… let us say, an unmistakable lady with a pole (because of course you can't call something 'stripper' without it having an ulterior meaning, apparently). Bad taste jokes aside, I’ll now go over how to use this product and the results I was able to get with it.
The product itself is super easy to use, in fact, its a 4 step process:
Step 1 - Wet the parts or apply the product to the desired areas with a brush.
Step 2 - Let the product act between 1 and 3 minutes.
Step 3 - Clean with a brush, water and soap to remove all the paint and product remains.
Step 4 - In case there are some complicated areas, repeat the process as needed.
These are the instructions as written on the bottle itself. They’re a little clunky to read, but they're still fairly clear somewhat. I’m not entirely sure as to what kind of brush is called for though, so I used an old paintbrush to start with and to my surprise, it was successful at removing the paint. However, I then tried a toothbrush and it just took the paint right off with ease, so I would suggest using an old toothbrush (or like me, just buy a cheap pack specifically for paint removal).
To test out the effectiveness of the AK Paint Stripper I brought some questionably painted models to strip. I made sure that these were a mixture of metal and plastic to see how the AK Paint Stripper would work on each medium, just in case there was a difference between how it reacts on meal and plastic.
I worked with the metal model first and the process was quite simple. I coated the whole model with AK Paint Stripper and left it for the required time before slowly beginning to wash it away with soap and water in the kitchen sink, brushing the model gently with a toothbrush. At this stage, I could already see immediate results from the AK Paint Stripper, but given the intricate details of the metal model and the number of pits in the cloak itself, it was tough to get the bristles of the toothbrush into some of the tighter spaces. As a result, it took a couple of goes over with the AK Paint Stripper before I finally started to clear it, even resorting to the use of a toothpick in order to get into all the tight little spaces and deeper into the pits in the cloak.
After one more go-over with AK Paint Stripper and perseverance with brush and toothpick, I was left with a stripped metal model ready to be given a new colour scheme.
After this, I tried the AK Paint Stripper with the plastic model to see how the different medium would react. As with the metal model, I coated the plastic one with AK Paint Stripper and then left it for the required time. When I began washing it in the sink the first thing I noticed was how much easier it was to brush clear than the metal model, as it didn't have the same level of intricate detailing and pitting. It took some time, as with the first, but I did again see immediate results from the AK Paint Stripper.
After letting it dry and then giving it another go-over with AK Paint Stripper, the model was then more or less clean. The only thing that was different is that due to the nature of the plastic and the chemical reaction of the AK Paint Stripper, the plastic did end up being stained darker than its original colour. But this is to be expected and is a common trait when stripping paint from models, and as it is going to be re-painted again anyway this bares little consequence.
Overall I highly recommend AK Paint stripper, it's easily the fastest-acting paint stripper I've tried and I feel I will be using this exclusively from now on.
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