Ultrasonic Jewelry Cleaner for stripping minis...

[kurtnotkirk]

Hey all, I was wondering if anyone had ever used one of these to aid in stripping paint from minis. I was soaking mine the other day, in simple green, and scrubbing them with a toothbrush... and I looked over on a shelf in my workshop and saw the unit I bought a few years back for doing tattoo work. These are great for cleaning out shafts when changing ink colors on same clients. It occurred to me that this would be perfect for getting more paint off of the minis, so I gave it a shot, and it worked GREAT. I still soak them and scrub them, but this helps a great deal. These units start between $25 and $30, and go up from there.

[MagickalMemories]

Very interesting topic, but in the wrong forum.
Moved.

I kind of wondered if one of these would work.


Eric

[gpfredette]

Good day,

I actually tried this and it didn't work at all for me.

I admit I got a cheapy unit off of eBay and I tried for about a month before I ended up giving the machine to a local charity shop (kinda like Goodwill).

Maybe if you have a high end machine it might work better but the cheap one I had after what seemed like 10 or 15 runs just didn't get the paint loose enough to even scrub off.

Just my experience - sure would love to hear if anyone has had good luck with using one for stripping models.

Thank you,

[aurak_merc]

At my former job, I had access to an indutrial sonic bath and acetone. My boss let me use it whenever it was not needed for actual work. I did a double-boiler type setup and it worked great for metal mini's. I would place the metal mini's in a pyrex beaker full of acetone and cover it with aluminum foil. Then, I would "float" the beaker in the sonic bath which contained RO water. After about 30 minutes the paint and glue came off with ease. This would not work with plastic of course. I have had painted models sit in acetone baths without the sonic element in play, and they took much longer (about 2 days) to achieve the same results. The glue dissolves quickly, but the paint takes a while to come loose.

[TheRhino]

I tried in the past, also with a cheap unit I got on eBay. Didn't do a damned thing.