Cryx - The first to come clean

Cleaning Cryx this fine freezing evening... because if you want to stay warm in Wisconsin, it's a good idea to head to your basement and poor concentrated solvents and cool water all over your hands. I think that's how Frank Lloyd Wright bit it.

In any case - here's how I started to strip... my Jack...

the offender - a Cryx Seether Warjack

Occasionally I have to use some other solvents, but it always starts with my personal favorite: Simple Green. I bathe metals for as short as a few hours to as long as a day - Plastics can corrode a bit in this stuff over time, so in their case, cut it in half with water and soak for the same length of time. After soaking, get your girlfiend/wife's toothbrush and start scrubbing. You may not want to let them attempt to clean their teeth with the brush after you are done, but this is not an ethics blog; I'll leave those decisions to you. I found that the paint on my model was particularly difficult, so I soaked the mini for a further two hours in turpentine. Never soak a plastic mini in a strong oil-based solvent like turp - you will make plastic soup after your figure is entirely dissolved. If a plastic mini has a paint/prime that doesn't want to come off in Simple Green, dip your toothbrush in some turpentine, brush the mini, and immediately wash it thoroughly with water.

Even after all the soaking and spouse-based toothbrushing, I still had some bits of crud on my Seether, so I picked it off with a sharp dental tool. Crazy? Maybe, but I don't want bits of junk under the layer of primer that is forthcoming. I pulled apart the model, cleaned off the largest chunks of dried superglue, and was left with this:

a nice clean pile of metal

Somewhere, some poor painter just felt a twinge of pain - his work erased.

Tomorrow is nerd night out at Misty Mountain Games in Madison, but I'll be anxious to work on this some more in the near future.