Recently I decided to have a crack at painting some citadel miniatures. Since I’ve tons of them in the loft at my parents I dug some out. I wanted to start afresh so needed to strip some of paint. These were mostly painted in Citadel Acrylics with the odd bit of Humbrol enamel. I use to use acetone as a kid but it never worked well, so did some research and came up with Dettol antiseptic. This is also safe on plastics.

Above is an example of a model painted well over twenty years ago, badly.  Although not bad for a 12 year old I guess.  All my models were base coated with citadel spray paint primer, then painted with citadel acrylics.

So the model is broken down and placed into a glass jar, in this case with lots of others and in fact too many. Top up with Dettol antiseptic to fully cover the models, bought cheapo in any Tesco, Sainsbury, pharmacy or at Amazon here.

Leave it for a few of days, each day giving it a gentle shake.

After a couple of days it turns rather cloudy and you’ll see bits of paint in the Dettol.

I wish I’d known about this as a kid, as always used either isopropyl alcohol or acetone, and found both rather rubbish at getting the job done.

Once you see a decent amount of paint sediment in the bottom or floating about, after perhaps three days or more, it’s time to get the miniatures out.

After three days tip out the Dettol into a tub, don some gloves and scrub the miniatures with a toothbrush.  Dip the toothbrush into the dettol and keep scrubbing, it doesn’t take much.  If you dip the toothbrush into tap water it’ll reactivate the acrylic and the brush will get sticky and horrid.  Definitely wear gloves for this.

Once scrubbed, put back in the glass jar and flush a few times with fresh tap water till the water is crystal clear.

Lay out the miniatures to dry, and they should be lovely and clean of paint like this:

If you still have some paint in the nooks and crannies then put back in some clean Dettol and repeat for another couple of days. Job done!