I should clarify, before anyone gets too much hold of the shitty end of the stick, I've nothing against those that do not clean their models nor am I leading some sort of crusade for micro clean models
To date all my model builds have either been for clients or Finney7 instruction builds, both of these requires models with a generally clean appearance, specifically the instruction ones. I and all of the F7 crew also believe that showing a model being built is proof that at least one has been made before the parts were put in the box
All of us, and a great many here, have experienced kits where the part fit is so poor that they could never have been test built
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If you're doing commercial work and building a client base, then I think good clean models is important to show case your work. Good clear and large photos show progress and leave little room to hide and thus the drive to get it right is much higher.
I'd also stress that there are two types of cleaning, all of the above is simply washing the model and trying to maintain a clean brass surface, nickel silver does not suffer from this at all, wash with cleaner, rinse in warm water and dry, all tickity boo. It will eventually degrade and become dirty but it takes months, near years compared to brass which takes weeks.
The other cleaning is the mechanical cleaning, aka solder, this I do much less of compared to models of, say last year. Don't get me wrong, there are areas which have been flood soldered and are rough as hell, but all are inside and hidden once assembled, even when turned upside down.
The latter requires a different approach to building, less solder requires less cleaning and on the Princess Coronation I'd say 95% was assembled with a blow torch, much faster and much cleaner. There are still areas where something smaller and hotter is needed, basically small overlays and fine details, so small that using a torch will probably loosen something else close by or a soldering iron would leave too much residue. A resistance soldering unit would probably suffice and I think one of those will have to be on the shopping list very shortly.
For the chemical cleaning I've tried Viakal, Bar Keepers Friend (BKF) and Cillit Bang but have recently been using Lime Lite, it's much less aggressive and prolonged usage doesn't appear to tarnish the work like Viakal, BKF or CB. It also does not turn white metal or solder dark grey or leech out the zinc and turn brass orange, though I expect it would if left too long or was immersed in the stuff.