"Assembling Plastics - washing?" Topic

Starting to put together my horde of Austrians, is it still necessary to wash plastic figures these days, as I describe in this blog post? Cheers!
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Better not to risk skipping the wash.

I only wash the 1/72 soft plastics figs. I've never found it necessary for the hard plastic kits; in my experience they take paint fine without washing.

Mold release is not used in the manufacture of hard plastic figures or kits.
So, not needed.

It if a function plastic type and molding tech used. But just soft vs. hard is not enough to know. There are some slush molding processes that leave oils on the surface of "Hard" plastic. I would call these semi-soft, but it is not easy to put together a useful list. It can never hurt to wash the sprue before you start. A small investment in washing time can save a lot of headaches.

I've worked with plastics for 50 years, hard, semi-soft and soft. I've never washed them and have never had a problem.

Have glued together a few hundred French and Austrians (not to mention Orcs, Goblins and Rohirrim) without washing them and with no problems.

I've done Gripping Beast, Fireforge, and Conquest without washing and no issues.

I have assembled and painted (well, my painters did the painting) well over 1.000 boxes of 28mm plastics in the last 4 years and never washed a single figure. A good base coat of primer and you're good to go.

Fons
mmps.asia

I for one, being cautious soul, always wash my plastic parts as part of the preparation phase. However as noted above, it probably not really necessary.

I even wash lead figures.

I never wash…maybe thats why I have no friends…?

No, seriously, I dont wash figures as I only use hard plastic 28s and metals.
I have never had a problem washing figures could solve.

Hmm, interesting, thanks for the replies everyone!

You don't wash plastic mini/model parts to clean them for assembly. It's done to remove possible contamination that may impact painting when you get to that point. It's just easier to wash and dry those parts while un-assembled and still on the sprue.

While injection molds don't generally use a release agent, they are machines that require lubrication of the moving parts and often coolant. Both substances can easily get onto the sprues after they have left the mold.

When I started building model cars and such as a kid I never bothered to wash the parts, then one day I got a contaminated sprue. It totally ruined that kit for me and I have washed every plastic kit since just to ensure it never happens again.

I never used to wash but then I had an incident with some Zvezda kits where whatever was on the surface of the kit meant huge areas of primer just fell off in sheets.