need help removing cigarette/smoke smell/residue from figure

Well, for tightening joints you use super glue and wiggle for several minutes until it dry. Sometimes you have to pry a bit with a tiny screw driver to get the glue between two parts of the joint. I prefer Loctite in this bottle


For the smoke...

I just use dish soap and if the figure isn't mint I'll use a dish brush, which usually doesn't hurt anything on a factory painted figure anyway. If the figure smells like cigarettes I'll soak the figure in water and a type of Mr. Clean that has Febreze in it, it's turquoise colored liquid. It doesn't work on all figures unfortunately. Those Real Works figures I bought smelled like a forest fire when they came to me. I dish soaped, scrubbed, used Mr. Clean with Febreze, tried Kaboom foaming bathroom cleaner, tried dish soap again, and then tried bleach and water and that actually helped for a short time period. IDK what the deal is with Bandai figures, but the plastics they are made of absorb odors worse than Irwin or Jakks. When I bought that enormous Gorilla build a figure guy, a Marvel Legends figure or something, that I plan on making into an Oozaru, that thing smelled like an ashtray and soaking it overnight in the sink with the Mr. Clean Febreze stuff fixed it completely. You'd never know it smelled bad.

What few Real Works figures I still have for custom fodder, they still stink. I store them in storage cabinets with pieces of cedar (supposed to absorb odors) and the cedar doesn't really help.

Supposedly completely covering a figure in cat litter or baking soda for several weeks in a container is supposed to take out the smells, but I have never tried it. Personally, I'd scrub the hell out of it with soap first and then try the kitty litter if you want to go that route. Don't put a dirty figure in the kitty litter and expect it to come out perfect because the insides of the figure are still going to be stinky and dirty.

I use me clean and use a super soft toothbrush to clean/make my figures smell better.

Unless he has stickers on him or pieces made of metal, water usually isn't an issue.

If you're super concerned about it, you can ask someone who customizes that specific line of figures. Anybody who has ever boiled and popped them. They'd know if metal was inside.

Irwin and Jakks figures are all hollow in the torsos and the water drips out the leg holes and arm holes or you can shake it out.

For my giant Marvel Legends gorilla thing, I didn't freakin' care if he rusted or anything, I just wanted the smell to be gone. I soaked him in the sink, shook the water out, and he was fine.

Concerning DBZ figures, I wash every single thing I buy with dish soap and hot water before I even really handle them. The only things I don't wash are things with electronics. Irwin Striking Z Fighter Trunks has a metal pin in his ass that will rust if you wash him. Jakks toddler Gohan has a metal pin in his neck joint that can also rust, but since it is vertically inserted, it's less likely to rust as the water will drip off it. The pin in Trunks' ass is horizontal.

I'd just wash him with soap, toothbrush the hell out of him, and then soak him in some Mr. Clean Febreze water. I bet a ton of the smell is inside him, so soaking would be good. If you don't want to soak him, then don't, just spray him with hot water, soap him up, and give him a shower. Maybe that will get rid of enough smell. If he doesn't have exposed metal joints, you (and nobody else) would ever know any metal inside him got wet. It's really rare metal is inside figures anyway unless the articulation is made of exposed metal joints like 1990s Toybiz X-men figures or if the figure has a voice/sound effect or light up something).

I don't have any figures with mold problems. Never had a concern about it. Just use hot water, soap, and Mr. Clean w/ Febreze and shake all the water out after you've rinsed him.

In my story above, I used bleach as a last resort. Based on how expensive that figure is, don't risk using bleach. Do not use anything containing ammonia, because it removes some forms of paint (especially screenprinting) practically on contact. Don't use anything other than exactly what I mentioned. Don't even do the Mr. Clean Febreze step if the dishwashing soap (Dawn) does the trick. For me, I get so sick when I smell smoke, that I am usually very willing to risk the paint on a figure if I can get rid of what is making want to not let it live indoors, so I chemical the hell out of it if I need to.

That will just make him oily. Dawn dish washing soap is what they wash out petroleum containers with and also what they use to get crude oil off animals caught in oil spills so that's your grease and grime remover. +toothbrush or dish brush.

Don't use Googone or Goof Off if it is hard plastic as you will more than likely melt it.

I've never used Goofoff but I think it's a completely separate chemical than Goo Gone. Correct me if I'm wrong @aussiedcfan, but isn't it more like lighter fluid/acetone?

Goo Gone is made of oranges I think. I don't *think* it would hurt plastic, it would just make it incredibly greasy like it makes everything I've ever used it on to remove price tag stickers. I mean, I've used it on glasses and cups I've purchased without problems, other than it usually makes a harder to remove mess than the sticker was in the first place