You may remember that recently I rather stupidly sprayed black paint over some models and rather than drop kick them into the next county (or next door) I decided to strip them all (a bad varnish spray incident) and start again (at a rough estimate about 5 layers of paint and 3 coats of varnish).
Now Ray mentioned about reading that Fairy Power Spray had been suggested on a blog as a good paint stripper (this was fecking hard to find, online only) so I got bored and Ray suggested Dettol (liquid disinfectant and far easier to find in a discount store) and no I didn't think to stop and consider the suggestions came from Ray!
What follows is a brief tale about the what can only be called shenanigans...
This is the said product and toxicity warning I found: To reduce the risk of toxic exposure, safety masks and goggles should be worn while using Dettol, as well as avoiding spraying in the vicinity of people and/or animals, opening of doors and/or windows to allow ventilation, and avoiding external exposure to the surface of the body and/or inhalation, routes that allow rapid entry into the bloodstream???????
...and harmful to cats on the back of the bottle??????
I found this after the shenanigans, I didn't dilute, mask or goggle (and only used gloves after scratching my eye innocently)........
Before in tin......
....covered in 500ml of Dettol goodness, the smell was vaguely familiar and a brief remembrance of pain and grazed knees and elbows.....
After a 24 hour stew and the occasional stir (grey smelly gloop), the toothbrush wasn't mine and if you're asked you know nothing......
There was a little problem though, the grey gloop came off quite well....initially.....but some of it refused to budge with elbow grease or excessive swearing but then I found a can of WD40 (oil and water displacing spray) and a few sprays later the gloop was virtually beaten and we continued the scrubbing and hey presto but....
Now to get to this stage took a lot of scrubbing with the toothbrush (it failed after a while and we moved on to a nail brush...I found) but the smell of Dettol and the gloop left behind caused a few problems for those of us not wearing gloves (Ray) and those of us who forgot to wash our hands before using the bathroom ( also Ray).....this is the models in boiling water to try and disperse the smell ( sort of worked).....
After the process.......the only things that fell off were the aerials and one landing wheel on the shuttle, the models stayed together and could not be separated (which was a bonus to me anyway).....
Ready to undercoat and are now re-aerialed (I don't think it's a word either) but they still smell of Dettol, the kitchen still stinks of Dettol, Ray smells of Dettol and he has a rash where he didn't wash his hands before peeing but it saved the models and that's all good in my book.
Would I recommend it, compared to Nitromors it's a joy (the only other agent I've ever used) and it saved the models, not bad but better prepared next time!
Ray: It still itches....
Lurker: What does?
Ray: Down below......
Lurker: You should have washed your hands first mate!
Ray: Before peeing?
Lurker: Absolutely!
Ray: I hate you!
Lurker: Even after I bought you the cream?
Ray: It's hard to put on!
Lurker: Piss off sicko!