It's been too long, will be taking some tau home to make over Easter, just wanting to get something to strip my poor FW down, and my Ballast for the bases (ordered should be here 'soon'). It just comes down to:

Do I take new units (possibly kroot, which I don't have the right paints for or crisis suits, which I want to magnetize and have no magnets) home and try to build and paint them. Or do I take home the fire warriors and try to finish the job?

The finish you got is caused by one of 2 things, not letting the under coat fully dry before adding the second or no mixing the can enough. In both case the paint begins to separate as it drys and cracks. Before investing in an airbrush try shaking the can longer not just for a few second. The directions on the side of the can will tell you exactly how long but most are 2-5 minutes. The more you shake it the better. Also look into getting some good caps for the cans. Companies like Bombing Science, http://www.bombingscience.com/shop-tips.htm, sell all types with different spray patterns. Find a type that works for you and stick with it. With a little practice and work on your technique you wont have the problem again.

That's fantastic, will try that. That was the first coat, so it must have been that I wasn't shaking the can enough! Will test it on...some kroot? I managed to spray some sprues that didn't crack, but ti;'s a much thinner coating. Does that have anything to do with it?

The best painting advice I ever got was that many thin layers is 100 times better than one or two thick layers. So keeping the spray light will help it to be smoother. White Primer is a bit of a pain to get smooth depending on the weather, so hopefully the conditions are good. And make sure you don't get right up against the model; that will cause the primer to pool and obscure the detail. There were a few of my first Firewarriors who gave their lives for the Greater Good that way.

As for your original question, you totally should finish the Firewarriors. The biggest mistake people make is to start a ton of projects and never get anything done. When you get those guys done though, you will have an immense sense of satisfaction.

So get to work!

Keep in mind that you don't absolutely need to get every nook and cranny completely covered. I usually do 1-2 light coats and call it good.

I've also had decent success using acrylic gesso, slop it on thick and it dries paper thin.

I'm home, with Tau in tow, but not my full box, just my FWs. Oh but forgot to grab the spray, no where to spray anyway...

The reason I sprayed them, was to get into the nooks and cranies that were made between the chest and gun in most models.

Oh I picked some purple ink (looks green in the pot, purple when it gets on your fingers!) and teracotta. Not sure where I'll need them but might be handy!

Might glue some FWs tomorrow and try to get photos up.

I've sanded down the joints of my best sprayed sprue, don't think I need to strip it down before painting. There is only one layer on there, but it's pretty well covered.... Should I go head and paint it whilst I've got it here or be paitient and wait to get back to my spray paint in portsmouth?

Also, my parents have some spare white spirit, is that going to make my poor FW look like a biovore ate them up and spat them out or will it do the job safely?

Also been puzzling over the battle suit configurations and it;s making my head spin. I plan to have quite a lot of kroot and some fair few FW, with two XV88(-2 if I can ) and three battle suits. I'd liek to make the teams interchangeable so I can go between 500 and 1000 points if need be. And with just 3 Battle suits I want to nake them count. But what as? :o

Edit[7/4/10]
Went and got a pressurized can of air and an airbrush, plus some pinning wire. Attempt two at gluing some models and painting them will occur tomorrow. Watch..This...SPACE! :o

Glued the best part of my last batch of Fw, now soaking the rest in hot water and white spirit (half a small cap) and one in pure white spirit. I'm watching it now.

I left the cable for my phone at my house so I can't upload images so well. Might fiddle with SD cards and try to upload them via my dads phone later.

Looks like the white spirit is working. Although the hot water took an arm off of one of them! Ok now I know it's working so they're all going for a swim!

Edit: So it seems the smell of petrol isn't very pleasent and they're going to go on the back burner for a while. Looking positive though I've left a pained bit of sprue sit in there for a while and I'll see how it ends up... will try for photos later tonight!

With stripping i normally find white spirit does the job, but with sprays it tends to vary. If you're in England, then I'd use Cif (just not the degreasing kind, as it seems to dump a 'film' on the model preventing further coats from applying properly), as it tends to dissolve the spray without touching the glue, at least in my experience.

I've definitely had the problem of cracking before, and now I'm thinking about getting an airbrush, especially for lighter basecoats.

i certainly can't comment on petrol as a paint stripper, though I'd imagine it'd be pretty severe on a plastic model... please correct me if I'm wrong.

Well White Spirit is 'Petroleum Distillates'...Thought that would cover it as it is a petrol smell, just not form petrol.

Also it was plastic glue but both sides of the weld are white with paint, and I can only assume it's what ruined it. Will see if we have anything like Cif around tomorrow.



Also, your the first person to give me a decent, english alternative to Simple Green and Pinol. Cheers!

Ah, well, i stand corrected on the nature of White Spirit! One can only suppose that's why its so flammable!


I think you've probably guessed correctly on the glue, I've only ever used White Spirit on metal anyway, so i wouldn't know it's effect on plastic.

Ha! I know how you feel, Cif was a complete guess for me, I found it and thought "This cleans stuff, so it must work on paint!". All the advice on stripping paint seems to come from America or the rest of Europe, so they don't seem to give us Brit's much to go with. On the subject, I have heard good things about using Dettol on plastic, but I can't really see how an anti-bacterial spray will help...

I'm no expert on paint stripping. But perhaps the anti-bacterial agent in Dettol is based around altering pH.
If the Dettol was a mild acid or base that might account for why it breaks down paint.

This is a pure suggestion, and I'm no chemist, so don't dunk your models in dettol with testing first

Hope it helps anyway...

Well, some light research has found that Dettol is active over pH 4-9 which means that it could dissolve paint i suppose, though with that sort of variation in pH it wouldn't be consistent I'd have thought.

I'm no chemist either, so i would also second being careful!

Thanks for your help, I hope my contributions help in some small way

Will try a test on them If I find them in the cupboard!

The scrubbing brush fell apart in the white spirit. Well no it had been in there for a bit, and then sat in some water. Whatever was left on the brush ate away at it on the brush, and destroyed it. So don't try it yet.

No photos, can't do a flash card switcheroo after all sorry guys.

++Comlink window scheduled in astrospheric turbulence++
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This is poor test subject. Poor gluing of his arm means on fell off, and the plastic is now sort on the top. Soft enough to scratch with a finder nail. Also the pant needs *serious* effor to remove, and is best done by scratching at the plastic (causing damage)

In conclusion White spirit really isn't great, don't use it unless it's your last option! Plus it stinks!

Edit: Photobucket is playing silly buggers with my upload. Will try again when not starving!

My models got put to one side once I got back to my placement house so have not had much done to them. Really hoping that there isn't too much damage from the fail paint stripping attempt.

I really want to do some more on them after a quick browse on ATT, always a good place for inspiration even if it's just PAINT FOR THE LOVE OF AUN PAINT!

Watch this space - attempt two will be on thursday (hopefully!)

My entire army is primed with just chaos black paint. While it probably is good to use a primer, I find it just as effective to use flat black or white citadel paint as your primer. Though I'm no expert painter like some of our fellow Tau commanders on here, I still would argue my point as you don't have to worry about dust particles or a clean room, none of that stuff...not to mention your layers are so thin you wont have to worry about stripping if your careful and don't gob on the paint.

Hey Kais, handling your spray-gun or your primer actually comes with quite some trial and error.
During that process you will probably mess up a lot of models (and some of us still do at the end).
In the case of successive failure you occasionally want to salvage some of your models or parts to donate them to your next project

The stuff I use(d) to get rid of a (thick) layer of paint is to take some spare cloth (tissue-paper won't work),
dip it in a paint thinner (available in most hardware stores) and gently scrub the model: The more thinner, the harder the scrubbing, the more paint comes off..
The good thing about this procedure is that you can decide to leave the primer intact and just paint the model again or take all of the paint off, and have a go with your priming skills.

I used white spirit before that, but that is just the perfect stuff to get a beautifully crafted and converted plastic model ruined.

Good luck,
PoisonBladeNL



lol, you addressed me on plural..... (and called me human)

A good idea that I've used before is to use bits of sprue and spare parts to test painting and such on. That way you don't risk having to waste time stripping your actual models back down.

I've got 8 FW who are horrible sprayed, and the paint is so thick that it cracked and filled most of the detail. The other 4 I got in the box have been more lightly sprayed and turned out ok. they just got one coat, it seemed enough at the time. I'm not exactly using the right paint for the job, but it's a white car spray paint that the guy said would be 'ok', being a former model painter. It looks like it's ok if I can get the layers ok.

Just to ask, what makes paint stripper any different from white spirit? Also the layer is so thick that I struggled to get it off without soaking the models in White spirit (attempt 1) they're are some photos further up the page.

Results tonight...hopefully! Thanks for all the encouragement!