How to Strip Metal Models | Call to Arms Vlog Prep Day 1

Day one of tournament prep starts with stripping. 100% acetone, metal cup, hard bristled brush—getting eBay rescues ready for a new scheme.

Day One: Stripping

Getting ready for Call to Arms, and it starts with stripping.

The Method

There’s a lot of ways to strip models, but for metal (and only metal) models, the best way is 100% acetone. Throw it in a metal cup, throw all the models in, and wait.

Acetone smells terrible and you definitely don’t want to get it on your skin.

Prep Work

I popped all these guys off their bases because I’m pretty sure this would melt plastic. By roughing them up a little bit, it gives a spot for the acetone to get up underneath the paint in case it was sealed.

Everybody’s in there. Make a lid with a rubber band and some plastic that’s not going to melt. Check on it later.

The Tournament Challenge

Tricky situation: we can’t just paint this normally. We have to keep it playable to get practice games in while painting over the next two weeks. I want as much table time before the tournament as possible.

I need to practice with a chess clock too—physically moving models around. Nothing compares to real table time. War Table online or Tabletop Simulator doesn’t cut it.

Hopefully I can get everything based, primed, and back to playable condition today.

Stripping Results

After a couple hours, gloves on, cardboard box, very hard bristled brush. Fish the first guy out and put him directly on the cardboard for pressure.

Just peeling this paint right off. Makes a pretty big mess.

The Process

Pull everybody out and brush them down
Filter out the acetone with a cone filter (catches tiny bits too)
Throw everybody back in
Do it one more time
Wash off with water

The filter lets you keep reusing the acetone. It’ll change color but works fine.

Taking Stock

After stripping, these guys are ready for priming. But then I realized I had some new in box, so I’m building those instead. Got mold lines to clean, reassembly needed, some still need stripping now that I’m really looking at them.

Got to strip those guys, get everything based (I’m out of my basing material), then prime. I’m going to make my own basing material—that’ll be the next video.

Day One Complete

Really I’m cleaning up all this stuff, recovering from pulling everything out. It’s all in piles from sorting through it. Getting this back to a functioning work area.

That’s day one of getting ready for Call to Arms tournament prep.