To those of us who collect old miniatures, the greatest scourge is lead rot. There are plenty of articles online about it, so if you are unfamiliar with it, Google is your friend. But while the process is pretty well understood, the means to fight it once it has set into figures seems to be less understood, as there are a lot of differing ways documented online.
I am adding to this chorus of fighting lead rot, as unfortunately, I have quite a few figures afflicted with it. This is the first post in a series of several – not sure how many.
In this post, I am showing some photos of several of the minis I will be treating, and then I’ll do the most common step – soaking them overnight in vinegar. In this case, we’re using Food Lion’s distilled white vinegar.
After a night’s soaking (maybe two nights), I’ll scrub with an old toothbrush. From my reading, I expect to do this several times before getting all the rot off, if it works at all. I may have to graduate to a metal wire brush, and then to an Xacto knife, to remove all the rot mechanically. We shall see!
A few pictures of what my lead rot looks like. This is not all the figures I’m treating at this time, just a few choice to show the rot.
A Grenadier Cleric. The white, powdery stuff is the obvious evidence of lead rot.
The Grenadier Kneeling Cleric, which I believe replaced the above figure in their lines (it may have taken place in the jump from the Wizzards and Warriors line to the AD&D line).
What’s with the clerics? you may ask. More reinforcements for the depleted clergy of Mithras in Greywater! Not sure I’ll use these guys, I have others, but in going through my unpainted figs looking for clerics, I found these dudes with the damn lead rot – which spurred me into action.
This is an Archive figure. I think he is a hobgoblin – not sure. I’ll know when the rot is gone (and I hope it doesn’t take all of his face!). I’ll have to add an axe head or something, but I thought that given the extent of the rot here, it would be a good one to work on.
And here we have a figure who has appeared in the Greywater Chronicles, Laine of the Severed Isles. Just why did she leave the narrative after being rescued? Because I noticed in some of the photos that she had lead rot! The whole “I wanna go home” thing was just a cover story.
The interesting thing with her is this: once the figures are primed and painted, they are supposed to be immune to lead rot, as the chemical process cannot penetrate the protective coating. BUT, as you can see, I had left the edge of the base unpainted and even unprimed decades ago when I painted her. All the sites I’ve been reading are clear that the entire figure, even the underside of the base, has to be primed in order to be protected! And now you know.
And here they all are soaking in the vinegar. We’ll see how much good this initial soak does. Wish me luck (please!)!