Dried Out Paints. Is There A Good Way To Restore Them??
- Thread starter Mon Skallywag
- Start date
IdofEntity
New member
Alright, I have located a pot of completely dried Bubonic Brown from...at least 4 years ago. There was paint in the seal, and this stuff has no moisture left in it.
Items I will use to attempt to reconstitute a completely dried pot of paint:
- A 4 inch marble pestle (previously 6 inches until a cat knocked it off the counter)
- A 5 inch wide marble mortar with no texturing on the bottom.
- A dental pick
- Distilled water
- Retarding agent.
I do not recommend doing any of this, and instead recommend not being a complete miser and buy new paints. On the other hand, I'm bored and want to try.
Items I will use to attempt to reconstitute a completely dried pot of paint:
- A 4 inch marble pestle (previously 6 inches until a cat knocked it off the counter)
- A 5 inch wide marble mortar with no texturing on the bottom.
- A dental pick
- Distilled water
- Retarding agent.
I do not recommend doing any of this, and instead recommend not being a complete miser and buy new paints. On the other hand, I'm bored and want to try.
Mon Skallywag
New member
Let me know if this works!! I have tried the marble mortar and pestle to no avail.
meanmuttley
New member
Im glad I found this thread because I have a paint pot and dropper question. Im about to get deployed very soon, and was wondering how to store my paints until i get back. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? I would love to here them, so I can keep on painting when i get back.
A bit of pot maintenance may be in order
Check that they are not already in the process of drying up... add water or airbrush thinners as necessary.
Try and make the pots, whatever type, as air-tight as possible by cleaning around the lids/spouts. Easy with some harder with others...
You can try squeezing air out of the pot, if they are the squeezable type, before tightly screwing down the top.
I store pots and jars upside down if I don't think I am going to use them for a while as this should make it harder for air to get in.
Check that they are not already in the process of drying up... add water or airbrush thinners as necessary.
Try and make the pots, whatever type, as air-tight as possible by cleaning around the lids/spouts. Easy with some harder with others...
You can try squeezing air out of the pot, if they are the squeezable type, before tightly screwing down the top.
I store pots and jars upside down if I don't think I am going to use them for a while as this should make it harder for air to get in.
meanmuttley
New member
Thanks finn, Ill do that then.
Moradin
New member
Tips on paint storage
To help out keep paint from drying I use a few tricks:
First one is, like mentionned above, check the bottles to see if drying up has started; if the paint starts to get thicker to downright gooey, just add water, shake well and look to see if the paint is back to a more normal consistency. Repeat if necessary.
Second, clean the edge and cover of the pots/bottle (area in contact with the inside of the cover), the cover itself (especially where in contact with the edge of the pot) and the screw thread of both the pot and cover. If you have paint there (dried or fresh), the cover will not close properly and the paint moisture will escape and one ends up with dried paint within a short time. :tremble:
The third and last step is, after the cover is cleaned and well closed, to put the bottle upside down so that the liquid paint fully touches the cover. This last step will help to keep those with cover seal from getting dry and it is harder for moisture to escape by going down and up the screw thread of the bottle. In fact, the moisture should remain trapped in the bottom of the bottle where there is no hole to escape! So the bottle really becomes a closed system, nothing goes out, nothing goes in. Only time could spoil the paint with slow chemical reactions of the solvent and the pigments and this takes a long time! As for storage, avoid sunny areas and too warm places; a cardboard box with a cover on the floor of a closet is quite fine.
A good thing to do is to check for leaks if you want to put your bottle upside down, just shake it hard in your hand, if you end up with paint on your hand, the whole thing will leak! :shock: Just reclean the cover! If it does not work, change the bottle and the cover, the cover or the thread is too damaged to seal properly the bottle.
I have been able to keep paint bottles for quite a few years this way with minimal losses. It works well with both enamel and water-based paints. The crucial point is to keep the thread of the bottle and its cover clean, this is the major area for the moisture to escape and dry up the paint. It is the same way as professional painters keep the gallons of paint useable for a long time, they clean the edges, close the cover tight and keep the whole thing upside down!
Hope this help!
Moradin
To help out keep paint from drying I use a few tricks:
First one is, like mentionned above, check the bottles to see if drying up has started; if the paint starts to get thicker to downright gooey, just add water, shake well and look to see if the paint is back to a more normal consistency. Repeat if necessary.
Second, clean the edge and cover of the pots/bottle (area in contact with the inside of the cover), the cover itself (especially where in contact with the edge of the pot) and the screw thread of both the pot and cover. If you have paint there (dried or fresh), the cover will not close properly and the paint moisture will escape and one ends up with dried paint within a short time. :tremble:
The third and last step is, after the cover is cleaned and well closed, to put the bottle upside down so that the liquid paint fully touches the cover. This last step will help to keep those with cover seal from getting dry and it is harder for moisture to escape by going down and up the screw thread of the bottle. In fact, the moisture should remain trapped in the bottom of the bottle where there is no hole to escape! So the bottle really becomes a closed system, nothing goes out, nothing goes in. Only time could spoil the paint with slow chemical reactions of the solvent and the pigments and this takes a long time! As for storage, avoid sunny areas and too warm places; a cardboard box with a cover on the floor of a closet is quite fine.
A good thing to do is to check for leaks if you want to put your bottle upside down, just shake it hard in your hand, if you end up with paint on your hand, the whole thing will leak! :shock: Just reclean the cover! If it does not work, change the bottle and the cover, the cover or the thread is too damaged to seal properly the bottle.
I have been able to keep paint bottles for quite a few years this way with minimal losses. It works well with both enamel and water-based paints. The crucial point is to keep the thread of the bottle and its cover clean, this is the major area for the moisture to escape and dry up the paint. It is the same way as professional painters keep the gallons of paint useable for a long time, they clean the edges, close the cover tight and keep the whole thing upside down!
Hope this help!
Moradin
IdofEntity
New member
Just buy a new paint pot and maintain it better than your last one. I can't grind the dried paint down fine enough to make anything but a crappy, clumpy paint. I'm not given up on the idea that I can reconstitute the paint, but this method is a bust.
It's paint again, but I would never touch it to a model. It's...well I could use it for caveman drawings. Not ones that I'd brag about though.
Einion
New member
Bonus points for the experimental spirit
The retarder isn't going to bring anything to the table incidentally, and could actually be a bad idea to mix in. Just a little acrylic medium is likely the most useful addition.
With dried out paints that are dry the binder has coalesced into a plastic - an acrylic/vinyl copolymer or, with many hobby paints, straight vinyl - with the pigment grains interspersed throughout it in a fairly even matrix. You CAN certainly grind anything like this down to a wet paste but I can assure you, it won't be good to paint with! Unless you're stuck and have no choice (that's how I know) it's definitely better to buy new paint if it has gone this far.
Assuming a good seal on the container hobby paints shouldn't become unusable when stored for a long time. They'll tend to settle like crazy of course so they'll need to be reinvigorated when you return but other than that sitting on a shelf for ages often won't do the paint any permanent harm.
Of course how well the bottles/jars seal is the main problem. If you don't want to mess with cleaning the threads or how well the lid seals on each one (or sealing with Glad Wrap, Teflon tape or Parafilm-M) put them all into one or more plastic food boxes with put the lids on good and tight. Store 'em in a cool, dark place if possible and they should be good to go when you get back.
Thanks for your service BTW :good:
Einion
"Pre-Deployment" paint prep
In addition to the maintenance already described, get yourself a few Ammo Cans, preferable the 20mm cans because the Sabol Army transport foam fits almost perfectly inside. If you can't get a hold of these then try the always plentiful 5.56/7.62/.50cal Ammo Cans. After prepping your paints put 'em in and store the cans somewhere cool. Make sure the cans still have the rubber O-ring seal intact and undamaged. I deployed often and had no problems with the paints. If your on post, make sure you paint the cans blue and no one should care about them. Blue for inert.
View attachment 6094 View attachment 6095 View attachment 6096
Good luck, keep your head on a swivel and be safe.
Stay Frost
In addition to the maintenance already described, get yourself a few Ammo Cans, preferable the 20mm cans because the Sabol Army transport foam fits almost perfectly inside. If you can't get a hold of these then try the always plentiful 5.56/7.62/.50cal Ammo Cans. After prepping your paints put 'em in and store the cans somewhere cool. Make sure the cans still have the rubber O-ring seal intact and undamaged. I deployed often and had no problems with the paints. If your on post, make sure you paint the cans blue and no one should care about them. Blue for inert.
View attachment 6094 View attachment 6095 View attachment 6096
Good luck, keep your head on a swivel and be safe.
Stay Frost
Bishop Odo
New member
I have been working on my paints as well, been re-hydrating my Reaper Pro-Paint, there about 8 years old, and still good just too thick, and I‘m too cheap to get more stuff. My laboratory vibrating mixer is great for this and after about 15 to 45, some where thicker than others, minutes really well mixed and all ready to go. Good thing I don’t have to do this by hand.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o135/bl...33/DSCN0426.jpg
I have been surprised by the failure rate of only 2%, both Troll Flesh, so far. Considering how long its been since, I seriously, painted anything, that’s pretty darn good. Guess I should also say there good paints as well.
Also purged my old GW inks, and I'll have to look over my Ral PArtha paints, yea I have some of them.
Coat'd Arms, and the GW paint made by them are good also.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o135/bl...33/DSCN0426.jpg
I have been surprised by the failure rate of only 2%, both Troll Flesh, so far. Considering how long its been since, I seriously, painted anything, that’s pretty darn good. Guess I should also say there good paints as well.
Also purged my old GW inks, and I'll have to look over my Ral PArtha paints, yea I have some of them.
Coat'd Arms, and the GW paint made by them are good also.
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I've just run into this problem myself. Going through a lot (7+boxes full, around 300 paints) that have been stored for 6 years since I was last painting and in the first two boxes I've got 69 completely dried, 8 salvageable ie. still kinda liquid, and only 6 useable.
The majority of the ones that didn't survive are the screw top GW with a few of the black flip tops. The ones that are still ok are mostly inks and metallics from the same ranges.
Still got to go through my Vallejo Game colour, model air and model colour sets, my Andrea, cote d'arms, P3, humbrol and older GW boxes tomorrow.
The majority of the ones that didn't survive are the screw top GW with a few of the black flip tops. The ones that are still ok are mostly inks and metallics from the same ranges.
Still got to go through my Vallejo Game colour, model air and model colour sets, my Andrea, cote d'arms, P3, humbrol and older GW boxes tomorrow.
