A paint remover is the emergency brake for the day a paint job goes wrong. Gritty spray, runs, a shade mixed badly, a camouflage that looks nothing on the model like it does on the drawing — in all of those cases taking the coat off beats burying it under another one. These products soften the paint film without attacking the plastic beneath, so it can be washed or brushed away.
Below: a safe working routine, the test on a piece of sprue that is never optional, and the list of things on a model that will not survive the treatment.
Spraying over a bad coat has one serious drawback: every extra layer hides more of the moulded surface. Panel lines, rivets and fine relief start disappearing by the third pass and the model begins to look wrapped in cling film. Unless the fault is a small local one, going back to bare plastic is the cleaner route.
The second common case is a second-hand build or an old half-finished project you want to complete to today's standards. There, stripping is almost always step one.
Products differ in strength and in how kindly they treat styrene. Try one on an offcut of sprue or a hidden area, and leave it on for as long as you intend to on the whole model. Be especially careful with clear parts and with thin parts in soft plastic, which can distort.
Immerse the part or brush the product on and leave it to work for the time the label gives. Then lift the paint with a soft brush and rinse. Repeating a short soak twice is safer than one long one. An old toothbrush and a cocktail stick deal with residue trapped in recesses.
Expect joints made with cyanoacrylate to let go, decals to be destroyed and thin filler seams to soften. Glued-in transparencies are better removed beforehand. After rinsing, the model has to dry completely and be degreased before new paint, or the fresh coat will not key.
Work in a well-ventilated room, in gloves, over a container you keep for nothing else. Do not pour the product down a sink unless the label allows it.
The rest of the auxiliary range sits in modelling chemicals. Stripping a model is an unpleasant but entirely ordinary step — a great many very good models only happened on the second attempt.
