Reviving Old Paints

[twjolson]

I have been away from painting for nigh on 5 years, and other than a brief one month stint somewhere in there, my paints have sat in the closet the whole time. About half of them are fine with a little shaking, but the other half are quite rough. They come out very thick to the point that they won't form drops, just a long line of paint.

 

My question is, what should I add into the bottles to thin them down? Is plain old water good enough, or is there something better?

 

Any other advice and tips would be appreciated.

[Angorak]

Depending on whether you live in an area that has "hard" water. I don't but I choose to add distilled water to thin and a few drops of flow improver never hurts.

[GreyHorde]

^ ^ What he said. Taking it a few steps further in detail: remove the bottle tip and clean out the congealed stuff with a toothpick. Push a straight pin or thin paperclip back through the tip to clear it. Use a toothpick to get the goo around the top inside of the bottle near the tip. Once that's out of the way, give the bottle a stir with a clean toothpick and see how thick it is. Add drops of distilled water and an occasional drop of flow improver, stir and check, repeat until it seems thin enough.

 

Now, grab an old brush and check some of the paint from the toothpick to your palette. If it's close to what you want, put the tip back on the bottle, cap it and shake the daylights out of it. Check it again. You may have some thick paint left inside the channel of the tip, but not a lot. Clean and repeat, adding distilled water and flow improver until you're happy with the consistency. Take small steps, add a little at a time because if you flood it, there is no 'thickening agent' for recovery.

 

Oh, and welcome back!

[twjolson]

Thank you, those are extremely helpful.

 

Yea, one day back into painting, and I've already sent 3 pieces back into the green dip of death...

[Cyradis]

Paint shakers are pretty darn handy. Once the thinner is in, pop the paint in and let it go for a while. They make a lot of noise, but are ridiculously useful. They're one of the things that kept me with enamels for so long (they'd separate overnight and take an hour of hand shaking to use next day). I ended up breaking two shakers, but that's a hazard of being a bane to mechanical and electronic devices

[Lord Wehrmacht]

I had much the same issues recently after coming back and what I have done is basically invest in the distilled water. It is cheap. I also use "gunk" which is 4:1:1 water, retarder, flow improver. For the most part the paints are fine. However some will take a bit of mixing in the pallet. (I use a porcelain 7 well flower from Dick Blick) My only issues have been some of the whites, but they are frequently grainy in my opinion anyway.

 

-LW

[Kang]

About paint shakers: Before you run out and blow a bunch of cash on one, do you have any power tools? I use a jigsaw to shake my paints. I just use one of those plastic tie things to attach a dropper bottle securely to the end of the blade, then power it on for about 30 seconds. I've pretty much got it down to a science where I can reuse the same plastic zip-tie thing for all my Reaper droppers by doing just a little careful prying so as not to scratch it up too much on the saw blade when slipping it on and off. After 30 seconds on the jigsaw, any of my RMS droppers will have their tiny pewter skull agitators rattling around like crazy and they flow just fine, though I have had to clean out the dropper tips of a few on some occasions. I've seen similar setups using electric sanders and reciprocating saws, though some of these use different methods of securing the paint to the tool, ie. elastics, etc. That's where you have to maybe get a little creative.

 

YMMV, and by all means be very careful when making improvised use of power tools - just because I don't bother with gloves & goggles when doing this doesn't mean other people shouldn't. I would think that if you incrementally add a little water, maybe the odd drop of flow improver (use it sparingly) as suggested above, and some sort of agitator (that won't rust or do anything else that would discolour your paints) if your paints don't already have some, this would be a quick way to shake up your paints as well & as fast as possible to get the water & flow improver well mixed in so you can if more thinning is needed. Also not a bad idea, once you have gotten everything revived that can be, to shake your whole selection of paints this way every few months to keep them in good shape; especially the colours you may not use all that often. Even if you only do this once or twice a year, it should really help keep your paints in a good and workable state for years to come.

 

Good luck reactivating them & I hope you don't end up having to replace too many.

 

Kang

[Heisler]

And if after all that the paint is coming out in any way grainy then throw it away. That will cause more grief for your painting than anything else.

[twjolson]

Thanks for all the advice.

 

I got the paint shaker and so far have only checked post-shake results.

 

Alot of them are coming out thick, and a lot need their nozzles clean. However, there are some that are so thick that instead of coming out as drops, it comes out as a long stream, worm-like.

 

So, my question is, what kind of amounts are we talking about for adding distilled water (I don't have anything else yet)? Should I be adding drop by drop, or greater amounts?

[Serenity]

If you're getting the thick streamer after cleaning the nozzle and using the paint shaker, you're going to need quite a bit of water to bring them back. I'd start with five to ten drops of water and see how it goes from there. You'll get a feel for it once you do a few paints. Also, I'd suggest you stir them with a toothpick or coffee stirrer or the like. That way you don't have to take off and replace the tip several times while adding the water. When you have it about right, put the bottle back together and use the paint shaker again.

[masterofnone]

Where do you find a paint shaker and approximately how much do they go for? I checked Hobby Lobby and Michaels as well as my FLGS but no luck. I would just use my Jigsaw as suggested but I have a 2 1/2 year old running around that loves to see what dad is doing and try to replicate it so yeah, not so much.

[Kang]

Robart has one that I've read mostly good (but also a few maybe not so great) things about; it goes for $32.60 (battery powered) or $41.50 (plug-in) on their site as of a few minutes ago. Who knows; maybe some other site has better prices, but this is pretty close to what I remember hearing they generally go for. IIRC they used to carry them at Micromark.com; not sure, but you could always check. I seem to remember at some point they also had a hand-held battery powered hobby paint stirrer for fairly cheap, but I was never sure if the business end of it would fit inside the neck of a dropper bottle or not; YMMV.

 

If you look around online a bit, you can probably find one or two designs for home-made paint shakers as well...

 

But still... the jigsaw paint-shaker method is worth reconsidering, IMO. By your logic, you should never use it for anything at all (unless you're OK with your child power-sawing things unsupervised after seeing you make a few cuts, just so long as they're not using it to shake your paints? ) - so why even have it?

 

But I do get what you're saying - I have a 2 and a 4 year old myself, and they don't even need to see me doing something to get into things they shouldn't and cause loads of chaos. That's why I make every effort to keep the blades, bits, and batteries for all my power tools safely out of their reach... I also tend to go out into my woodshed when I use the jigsaw to shake my paints, not so much to prevent my kids from seeing what I'm doing with my tools so much as because (A) it is a shelter of sorts, (B) I can smoke a cigarette there while I'm shaking my paints without the kids witnessing me indulging in my one remaining vice, and © <edit LOL that was not supposed to come out as a copyright symbol...> it's an awfully noisy thing to be doing inside the house and would annoy the rest of my family.

 

Whatever you decide to go with, good luck bringing those old paints back to life & happy shaking...

 

Kang

[Shortbeard]

Hi,

 

To shake paints I use a vortexer. It is the contraption scientists use to shake test tubes. Fleabay sells them for varying prices. But I got mine from the local uni as they upgrade theirs and mine is from the late 70's but the things a virtually indestructible. Plus my 3 year old loves to put his hand on it to get a little vibration.(That sounds bad) But it can't hurt him.

 

Good luck

 

SB

[twjolson]

Where do you find a paint shaker and approximately how much do they go for? I checked Hobby Lobby and Michaels as well as my FLGS but no luck. I would just use my Jigsaw as suggested but I have a 2 1/2 year old running around that loves to see what dad is doing and try to replicate it so yeah, not so much.

 

Yea, I got the Robart one. My local train/RC shop had to order it. I think any place that sells miniatures, Testors, Airbrush supplies should have one or be able to order it for you. Otherwise there is always online, this page was posted elsewhere in the forum http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/rob/rob411.htm?source=froogle

 

It's pretty good, but I wish that it shook the paints in such a way as to take advantage of the fact that reaper has agitators in their paint. But, manually picking up the shaker and moving it in various orientations should fix that.

 

Thank you all for the advice. You all get +1 XP, and +2 to Charisma.

[twjolson]

The revivification is going well. I am aiming to have the paints be a tad bit thicker than I remember them being, since it's easier to put water in later than take it out. On average, I'd say that I'm putting in 20 drops (at 5 distilled water to 1 drop retarder ratio) for those paints that require any, although 10 drops or even 30 drops does happen. If I think it needs 5, I just skip it.

 

For any that might find this post in the future, and happen to be in the same predicament...

 

Cleaning the nozzles does wonders. Sometimes the paint will snake out, and you will assume the paint is thick. That maybe the case, but it could also be that the paint in the nozzle is dried up and the rest may or may not be.

 

Also, make sure when you clean the nozzles, have a strainer or the drain otherwise closed. Those damn skulls do like to attach to the nozzles, and when you clean them it is very easy for them to go down the drain without you noticing. I was lucky enough to find one after the fact.

 

It is also easy to take the nozzle off, put it aside while you drop in water, and then forget to put the nozzle on, put the cap back on and put it in the paint shaker.

 

Have a large supply of toothpicks or something handy. A membrane forms just below the nozzle that will limit the amount of water you can put in, even though right below that is open space. A quick stir with a toothpick will break it and open it up.

 

It seems to be that the paints that were used more in the past, which wasn't many in my short career as a painter, seem to need the most reviving. So for me, the warm brown triad and the fire triads needed more reviving than the royal purple triad. So, if you are in the same situation, you can probably just pick those paints you use most often, revive them, and let the rest sit until you try to use them.

 

The paint shaker has definitely paid for itself though.