"Debonding Epoxy" Topic

Working through some old miniatures that are based on steel
Looking for ways to debond the expoxy they are attached with

Open to ideas, not worried about preserving paint jobs

My first try would be alternating freezing and heating. First a time in the freezer at least overnight followed by near boiling water.

Repeat a few times.

x42

Depends on the epoxy but you may have trouble. Try the easy things first.

Freeze it, it should get brittle. Maybe brittle enough to become easy to scrape off. Maybe bot.

Try soaking in vinegar or IPA, probably won't work, but easy to try and it might have an effect.

Heat could do it, but the temperatures required will probably ruin the miniature.

There are solvents, but they are bad ones and you don't know which one to use. You could start buying Methylene chloride and other awful things (mek? acetone? can't buy those where I live…) just to try them but that seems hard.

Mechanical solutions will definitely work. Files and dremels and sand paper. Very tedious.

Depending on the tools available to you you could also cut away the parts of the bases that extend past the mini's base and leave what's left. The minis get slightly taller, but then your problem is cutting thin steel, not undoing epoxy, which may be a more palatable challenge.

I think I would take a deep breath and a long look out the window and ask myself if I can't live with the current bases.

Good luck!

Freezing, then bath in Very Hot Water. No need for boiling. As hot as you can get from the pipe.
Rinse. Repeat.
The rationale behind this is that you have 3 different substrates. Lead for the figure, steel for the base, and the solid glue itself. All gave different "coefficients of thermal expansion".
The first freezing will stress the bond, perhaps introducing cracks in the bond. Then the hot water will seep into the cracks.
The thing that makes water unique is that unlike 99.99% of liquids, it EXPANDS when solidified. This introduces even more stress into the bond.
Doing this 3 or 4 times, and the figure may pop loose if a blade is pressed into the joint.
Need I say to be careful? 🙄
And this is done with no solvents.
I've done it many times. I'm currently doing it to skirmish based figures on steel washers, so I can then put them on MDF bases.

Freezing, then bath in Very Hot Water.
Rinse. Repeat.

You can try soaking the figure+base in Acetone (available in the USA at hardware/DIY stores), immersing just the base portion. Leave them in it for a week. Be sure to cover the container to prevent the Acetone from evaporating away. Remember, Acetone vapors are flammable, so keep sparks and open flames away from it.

If a mechanical removal proves necessary, use a rotary tool (generic for Dremel) with a cut-off wheel (order/purchase a pack of Cut-off Discs!): cut off the base as close to the molded base as possible; then, use the cut-off wheels (you will go through several, as they get smaller, as they work) to remove the steel washer material, until you reach the base's molded portion.

Tedious? Yes, but it will get the job done, with decent accuracy, as long as you are careful and observant not to take too much material off.

Alternatively, you can angle the cut-off wheels to cut into the edge of the molded base and steel, near their seam, but you will still need to remove the steel washer material from the figure's molded base by passing across it repeatedly, with the cut-off wheel, taking layers off across the whole of the base.

Play around with this, to find the optimal, fastest cutting approach. Cheers!

A freezer overnight, followed up with a sharp screw driver has worked for me repeatedly for over 30 years.

So, freezer for a couple hours, then boiling water. Freed up most that I could remove with my fingers, a few needed a blade.