Search the Community

So some of us are doing this, some have finished, and some have yet to start this, But as we have been discussing it over in the Aquisitions Thread, I thought we should really be doing it over here so people can find it... So I recently had ordered 100 dropper bottles from the River site, and I goofed by ordering 30ml instead of 15ml. The lousy return policy ended up with me keeping them, and ordering 100 more but 15ml this time. As the new bottles were delivered yesterday, I started transferring paint into them. Blond Shadow is playing Sir Forscale.... I would then wrap some masking tape around the bottle, and use a sharpie to label them. I then dumped the empty bottles into a bucket of simple green and water to clean them up. I started moving some Reaper Pro Paint into a 30ml bottle, as I was informed that a new bottle would not fit a 15ml. I then remembered someone mentioning that you can carefully peel the label off, and apply it to the new bottle. So I did this without much fuss, and wrapped scotch tape around it to be sure it stays there. So I decided to see if I could do that with my old GW paint pot labels, and was disappointed that I tore the label while doing it... I was able to salvage it, but it doesn't look all that great.... Then the brain kicked in, an I remembered using Ronson lighter fluid to peel labels when I worked in a grocery store years ago. REMEMBER! THIS STUFF IS VERY FLAMMABLE!!!! So I got out my can, put some on the paint label, and waited 5 minutes or so. I took the point of an X-Acto knife and worked it carefully under the label, and slowly peeled it off in 1 piece! I then put it on the dropper bottle, and ran the scotch tape around it. Looks great! So if you are moving paint from a pot with a paper label, give this a try! (I think Nail Polish remover would work as well, but I DON"T know for sure....) I know many of you dislike the GW paints, but I used them for a long time, and really like some of their colors, and I have yet to replace them with either Scale 75, Reaper, or VMC There has also been discussions about the best way to Transfer the paint, as the dropper bottles have such narrow necks. Tonight I used a syringe (See above pic) that I saved from pet medicine. It worked, but ws kind of messy, and I almost knocked over the old pot, and the new bottle. Would likely be easier with another's help... When I transferred the inks, I just unscrewed the cap, and poured carefully. Much quicker, and easier. I would then use a crappy old CLEAN brush as a spatula to swab as much paint out as I could, wiping it off inside the dropper bottles neck. I also used small funnels that I had ordered weeks ago that fit perfectly into Reaper and Vallejo bottle's necks. They don't fit perfectly in the new bottles I got, they need to be forced gently, and then held in place. Makes it hard to do much with only one hand free... Another thing I learned: Shake the Hades out of the paint pot, stir it with a stick, and shake it again! Then let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes, so that most of the paint drips down from the cap. Then do your transfer. If it seems a little thick, add some water, or whatever you prefer to thin with. I am using water and flow improver, and or flow improver and matte medium.... And don't forget to put a drop of paint on each cap top so that you can see the color at a glance! Use your 'swabbing' brush for this before you clean it. That's all for now! Please chime in with any hints, tips, or stories about doing this, so that we have a thread that can be referenced! George It's Takky Time NOW!

As i wrote in another post here, I used "stainless steel" ball bearings as agitators in most of my paints after transferring them to drop bottles last year. And a couple of weeks ago, I discovered ball-shaped rust-brown discolorations through the bottoms of some of the paint bottles. Not so stainless after all. argh! So I spent a couple of hours last night fishing the offending balls out of the paints with the metal bit on an old brush and a magnet. messy affair as you might imagine. However, I got a few surprises. 1. Some of the balls had...grown, Big cancerous lumps were present on them, and were flat where they had lain on the bottom or sides of the bottle they had been in. seems the paint had not only rusted the balls, but reacted and made some sort of hardish "growths". 2. Some of the balls were stuck. they would not come out even when prodded vigourously with a pointy stick. actually broke my stick without dislodging one of them. "Dug in like an Alabama tick" to quote Ventura. 3. The rusted balls had gone blackish and pitted beneath the gunk and paint. not rust coloured at all. the rust colour could only be seen through the bottle itself, and did not seem to affect the colour of the paint. (probably not enough of it to matter.) 4. and strangest of all: paint from the Army painter, vallejo, citadel (several different older types), gamecraft, coat d'arms, -all had rusted balls. but not Reaper. NONE of the balls in my Reaper Paints had corroded. at all. Nice and shiny as the day they were put in. this i find really strange, as the different makes including reaper do seem to have more or less the same smell, and mix with no problems, Which leds me to belive they were similar chemically. Might anybody know why this is? yes, I know I should have thought of taking some pictures, but my fingers were covered in paint. (they still are in places. some of that simply won't scrub off.) and anyway, here is a shiny ball, there is a black ball, here is a paintcoverd lump of mini stalagmites. not too exiting really. So now, I hope that the hematite beads i dropped in the paint instead actually are hematite and not rip-offs like the so-called "stainless steel" balls were.