Cleaning Warhammer

For those of you who don't know these are small figures made from metal, plastic and resin. Although the majority of them are made from a metal alloy which up until 1997 contained lead but this was phased out due to fears of lead poisoning. In most cases these figures are bought unpainted and then you paint them yourself using acrylic paint.

Should you decide that you either want to repaint them or just want to strip them back down to their original state, one thing that I have found works rather well is boiling vinegar and a dress making pin. All you do is heat the vinegar until boiling then transfer it into a bowl or another container if you have heated it on the hob, add the figures and leave for a few days.

After a few days you will notice that the paint has started to bubble a little, I found that using a dress making pin and gently rubbing it across the paint seems to an effective way to remove the softened paint, I mostly use the side of the pin except for in the tiny details.

Other things that I have been told work are:

• White Spirit
• Nail Varnish Remover
• Dettol
• Castrol

The main reason I opted for vinegar was purely due to the fact that I didn't want to use harsh chemicals when there are kids in the house. Also due to the sheer number of figures that I have to clean, it is also the cheapest as most supermarkets sell large bottles for less than 50p.