Just an idle thought I had while dusting figures with compressed air and a makeup brush. Would it be practical to use a cordless vacuum with a wide nozzle to give a "good enough" dusting job for figures, without removing them off of their shelf?

I'm picturing shooting a can of compressed air through a line of figures, then waving a vacuum over the cloud of dust that gets kicked up.

Does this at all sound like it makes sense?

 

The method you're suggesting would likely allow dust to cake on over time, which can ruin a figure. I'd personally fine detail dust them individually every 2-6 months, just make it part of how you enjoy your collection. I do this when I take pictures of my figures, for instance. I use a soft bristle paint brush and a little air squeezy for cameras to dust my figures.

 

Also, be wary of using compressed air to dust figures. Many brands use different chemicals in their products, and those may have a negative impact on your figures' longevity.

 

For the best cleaning experience, this is the stuff you want. It works so incredibly well!
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B081T7N948

 

I used my regular vacuum with the soft brushy cover on the hand held hose part, worked great.

 

I'm obviously not wanting to use such a method exclusively, just as a sort of weekly touch-up.

 

I'd suggest sticking with the makeup brush. There are uncertainties with canned air, as some contain bitterants and volatile propellants that may discolor or weaken plastics or pigments over time. Plus they have kinetic effects which may send accessories flying or knock things over, behind your shelves, whatever. As @lordcryotek points out above, using a makeup brush ensures that you handle your figures which is stress-relieving and increases the value you get out of your collection compared to those that sit inside a detolf or a storage bin forever and never get touched...

 

Yeah, I wouldn't use a can of compressed air. However, an air compressor works great.

 

Absolutely agree. It's probably the most use my compressor gets LOL

 

COmpressed air is such a ridiculous way to dust action figures. For starters it's not really cheap. Number two, it won't get all the dust so it's mostly a waste of time and money.

Buy a soft but stiff bristled makeup brush or a paint brush. Chisel tip.

Dust your figures with that. You pretty much can not get dust off of them without. The bristles get into all the greebles, corners, panel lines.

 

Last time we had one of these threads someone suggested they run their figures through the dishwasher  

 

You know what I've found is the best thing for dusting figures?

a set of makeup brushes. The bit poofy one does most of the work and then you have little angular ones for getting into all the crevasses. I got a cheap set for like $12 from Walmart and they've worked like a charm.

EDIT: and now I see I'm not the first person to make that comment. Or the second. or the third.  

 

If a makeup brush is good enough for my Prime 1 statue it's good enough for Transformers.

 

Several years ago I purchased a small air duster as a canned air replacement. The brand was XPOWER and can be found at several retailers. The Metro DataVac is another one. Ryobi even makes an air duster for their ONE+ battery system. Don’t have enough posts to share links to product pages, but they should be easy enough to find. The only thing I’m unsure about is whether there is a chance to cause damage from the CFM or possibly specs of debris that get sucked in and blown on figures.

 

Echoing much of the thread, makeup brushes are a tremendous help.

 

Yep, mainly makeup brushes. House vacuum cleaner with hose for titans. Compressed air is too much $$ so i got a basic manual pump air blower thing. The Kingdom Ark figure has spots that are hard to reach, so I use the air blower for deep penetration with the long shaft

 

I have one of those that I got off amazon as a replacement for canned air and to do things like blow up air mattresses or other things where a compressor would be overkill. Looks like it's about $50 on Amazon with other brands that I can't speak to the quality of as alternatives for between $45 and $80 (at least on Amazon.com. I checked .ca since it's where mine came from and it mostly seems like the xpower ones are unavailable or are being sold at like $80 Cdn.)

It works quite well. Mostly I will manually dust a figure off with the makeup brushes (and possibly a big soft paint brush if it's one that doesn't have a ton of cavities or grooves) and then once the brush has swept away or loosened most of the dust then a pass with the xpower blower/duster thing finishes the job.

The only recommendation I would make with it is that since it's usually strong enough to knock a freestanding figure over and as such you'll have to hold whatever you're dusting in your hand the whole time to work with it, get a glove of some kind to wear on that hand. Otherwise by the end of a lengthy cleaning session your figure-holding hand will be dried out and ice cold from the constant assault of air from the blower. Something solid like a leather glove might be best since the higher pressure air could force itself through knitted gloves (including things like rubber-palmed work gloves)

 

For serious dusting, I built a vacuum box..

Basically I connect a vacuum in the back where the double floor has holes for the intake of the dust. I put the figures inside and use a very soft bristly large brush on them that gets into all of the nooks and crannies of the toys (or anything like porcelain stuff or whatever needs dusting) without the risk of breaking anything.

It gets pretty much 100% of the dust, so prevents any airborne residue.

Waving around a vacuum hose in the air will probably get less that barely get 5% of that flying dust which will land right back on them after a while.

 

That’s what she said!

 

Different website but this still makes me chuckle
I Just Got My Alternators Out Of The Dish Washer