Chaplain

I try to have every soldier in my units.  WWII German divisions have two chaplains.  The figure on the left is the preacher from the Imex Pilgrims.  The one on the right is the Imex German Infantry officer figure.  Both of these are made of plastic that can be glued with regular model glue.

I cut off both heads.  The officer head went onto the preacher so he looks like a German officer.

The German officer got a head with M-43 field cap from a Preiser set along with an MP-40.  There is a dead guy in the Imex set who his holding an MP-40, I carefully cut it off and glued it to the officer.

A couple quick cuts and two very different figures.

Bunkermeister Collection

Part of the Bunkermeister Collection.  US Army armored infantry battalion, WWII.  Note the olive drab corduroy cloth to keep the vehicles in place.

Cold War, US Army, M-47 tanks and M-59 armored personnel carriers.  The bright green box is my spares box for this unit.  Sometimes a bit get broken off or there is a small accessory for the unit, so I have a small storage box inside the large storage box for just such items.

This is only part of the M-47 battalion, this time shown from ground level.

My late Cold War Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle battalion.

No corduroy on this box yet, most of my boxes have it, but a few still have not been upgraded to that standard.

Floor level view of the Bradleys.  Most of these still require the application of the detail parts.

Clean

I put each group of three troops in a separate plastic box with a lid on it and waited four hours.  No brushing, mixing or other work.

Here are the results.  All of them were cleaner than when they went inside the box.

The Oxy Clean was far and away the best of them all.  Look how white the white guy is now.

The bleach did a pretty good job too on the discoloration.

The bluing was the third best, the yellow guy is really nice.

I re-washed all of them in Oxy Clean.  They soaked for about two hours and they all came out much better the second time.  I used about two tablespoons of Oxy Clean for a pint of water, so a lot of cleaner.  Some of it did not dissolve so I imagine I could have used a bit less or more water.  It bubbled over the edge of the container so use a large container and don't fill it anywhere near the top.  Leave the figures for four to six hours and rinse well.  No brushing was required.

Cleaning

Some of my army men are dirty.

So I am experimenting with ways to clean them.

I used a variety of cleaners, Oxy Clean, Simple Green, bleach, bluing, Soft Scrub, and vinegar.

These figures are at least 40 years old, probably closer to 50 years.

I was looking for the easiest way to clean hundreds of figures.

The white figures were very discolored, not just dirty.  I like to use them for scientists, doctors and lab technicians so they need to be really white.