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all my previouse old GW ( not the old flip top one ) have dried up.

im wondering if there are anyways to save them despite been dried solid.
if not im throwing them out now. its been sitting in my box for ages

depends how dried up, if you can stick a handle of a paint brush in there with some paint extender and mix it up real good your back in business. I have an old pot of enchanted blue I hafta do this to every few months, stupid screw on cap

jedi76 wrote:depends how dried up

I think this is a pretty good indication:

LunaHound wrote:dried solid.

Dude, throw them out. Cut your losses.



Ghidorah

i really despise the screw cap ones.... every stupid bottle dried im sure i closed the lid tightly too.
9 bottles of paint 4 bottles of ink gone.

why does this happen? how do i prevent this from happening with new bottles in the future?

If the paint is like PVA glue then just add some water and shake, if it rubbery and dry you are SOL.

The new bottles will have better caps so don't worry. or get valejo (sp?) they come in eye drop containers.

vallejo paint is quite interesting, i cant tell if its the eyedrop container thats helping or the paint content.

it seperates into paint at bottom , oily clear liquid on top. and its hard to dry having an oily seal on top.

Ive had some limited luck bringing back solidly dried paints with water. You need to pulverize the solid to a dust first, and if you use too much water you get a very thin paint but it can work. As a warning, it doesnt always work, but if your willing to deal with the aggravation, give it a go.

I aquired paints from the local gamestore owner here in pg *bf helped clean out his garage. and we got all the left over stuff) The ones I could salaveg I added a bit of water to it and they work fine now. the one I had to keep *blazing orange I think* I had to grind into a dust and with a bit of water its usable.

Use de-ionised water like you get for steam irons and car batteries to rejuvenate your paints. Oh, and get some tiny non-porous stones from the garden and wash them real good then dry them. Drop one of those (I'm thinking small pea sized stones) in each of your paint pots, even the good ones, and especially the new GW foundation paints. Now you can mix your paints the same way you mix your spray paints. I think the flip tops are worse for evaporative losses than the screw tops personally.

Mixing this way stops you wasting paint on cocktail sticks. Adding water to dried or dehydrated paints is good, I've had new foundation paints where they've lost water just being on the shelf in the store, so I tend to top up everything with de-ionised water, and drop stones in for mixing, as the newer paints tend to settle out into their pigment layers quite quickly.

I've managed to bring back all but the worst hard dried completely destroyed paints using the water and magic stones method.

Nuclear Mekanik wrote:Use de-ionised water like you get for steam irons and car batteries to rejuvenate your paints. Oh, and get some tiny non-porous stones from the garden and wash them real good then dry them. Drop one of those (I'm thinking small pea sized stones) in each of your paint pots, even the good ones, and especially the new GW foundation paints. Now you can mix your paints the same way you mix your spray paints. I think the flip tops are worse for evaporative losses than the screw tops personally.

Mixing this way stops you wasting paint on cocktail sticks. Adding water to dried or dehydrated paints is good, I've had new foundation paints where they've lost water just being on the shelf in the store, so I tend to top up everything with de-ionised water, and drop stones in for mixing, as the newer paints tend to settle out into their pigment layers quite quickly.

I've managed to bring back all but the worst hard dried completely destroyed paints using the water and magic stones method.

so we must periodically re fill the paint with de ion water ? what if we use tap water :x

For my Vallejos, I popped the dropper off and added a hematite bead to each bottle. Even when the pigment settles, I just turn the bottle over so gravity will help the bead pull loose and then I give it a good shake. The hematite beads cost me something like $3.00 for a hundred of them, so for $6.00 I got enough for my entire Vallejo paint case with some left overs. I haven't had a bad separation or dried up paints in two years. The only reason I have had to replace Vallejos is because I ran out of the color.

The hematites are typically non porous and polished, so there's no danger of contamination from the bead and since they are stone, no chance of rust or corrosion.

Don't Reaper Master series paints come with a bead? I could be crazy,
but there's something in that bottle when I shake it.

Malfred i dont know if they do or not but if its a spray theres always a marble or bead.

anyway to the op they onlything you can do if its really bad is scrap out all the paint and clean it and reuse it for mixing.

Yes, Reaper Master Series paints come with a white metal skull agitator in the bottle.

Yeah it used to be a little skull shaped bit in the bottle. I have heard BB's work just fine as well. In all seriousness, if you can afford to just toss them and by V's store the bottels cap down to prevent paint drying in the dropper and drive on. I still use GW metalics and their Dark Angels green but V is the best paint out there IMHO! If you can not afford new paints try some acrylic extender or medium into the dried up ones, you might have some luck but it will take a bit of work. Good luck!

LunaHound wrote:
so we must periodically re fill the paint with de ion water ? what if we use tap water :x

Tap water is ok, but not ideal just due to the impurities, which will vary depending on your area and water supply. De-ion is relatively cheap and a bottle will last you for utterly ages. If you want to be really anal, you should use de-ion for washing your brushes too, but that's going a bit far.

Nuclear Mekanik wrote:

LunaHound wrote:
so we must periodically re fill the paint with de ion water ? what if we use tap water :x

Tap water is ok, but not ideal just due to the impurities, which will vary depending on your area and water supply. De-ion is relatively cheap and a bottle will last you for utterly ages. If you want to be really anal, you should use de-ion for washing your brushes too, but that's going a bit far.

does those bottled water count as been pure? or must be de ionzed?

I use distilled water and a touch of Future Floor Wax. It's always worked for me.

LunaHound wrote:

Nuclear Mekanik wrote:

LunaHound wrote:
so we must periodically re fill the paint with de ion water ? what if we use tap water :x

Tap water is ok, but not ideal just due to the impurities, which will vary depending on your area and water supply. De-ion is relatively cheap and a bottle will last you for utterly ages. If you want to be really anal, you should use de-ion for washing your brushes too, but that's going a bit far.

does those bottled water count as been pure? or must be de ionzed?

Bottled water is the opposite of de-ionised water. :S

Correct me if I am wrong but most bottled water is usually nothing but filtered tap water in a container and a waste of plastic for all those bottles, and therefore still contains minerals and compounds that they sometimes add to it to make it taste better. Whereas de-ionised water should be pure H2O with nothing in it. Right?

You bunch of cheap asses. Buying de-ionized water and all sorts of other crap? Throw the damned paints away and buy a new $3 bottle... Tightwads.

DON'T dip into the beer money for it though...



Ghidorah

Ghost in the Darkness wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but most bottled water is usually nothing but filtered tap water in a container and a waste of plastic for all those bottles, and therefore still contains minerals and compounds that they sometimes add to it to make it taste better. Whereas de-ionised water should be pure H2O with nothing in it. Right?

In Europe, mineral water is naturally mineralised water produced by water filtering though layers of rocks. It has real minerals in it and the bottle will give an analysis of the various types of minerals on the label. These analyses are controlled by law. The taste of the water varies depending on the mixture of minerals.

When Coke tried to launch Dasani in the UK it was a massive disaster because it was found out that it was just filtered tap water, not real mineral water. There had been a comedy programmer about a bunch of tricksters launching a new mineral water which was just tap water.

Everyone laughed at Dasani and it had to be withdrawn from the market in about a week.

De-ionised water, or distilled water, which is used for topping up car batteries, is what you want for thinning paints. Mind you, I often use London tap water -- which is famously hard -- without ill effects.

Normal tap water should work just fine. I honestly think this would be best for you, since you won't want to be making extra trips on a method that MIGHT work. (depends on how bad your paints are, really).

Throw some water in there, try mashing it with a stick (the back end of a brush is convenient) and see if you get paint. No need to make extra trips to the grocery store when you don't know how well this will work.


Do NOT use bottled water. It is less ideal than tap water, and costs a ton more than de-ionized water.

Ghidorah wrote:You bunch of cheap asses. Buying de-ionized water and all sorts of other crap? Throw the damned paints away and buy a new $3 bottle... Tightwads.

DON'T dip into the beer money for it though...



Ghidorah

hey! there is reason behind this lol. all my dried up paint have SOLID paint chunks that sits at atleast 40% of the paint bottle.
if there was a drop of liquid in it at all, doesnt that translate it to drying up with almost full bottle of paint?

i just dont want my future new bottles of paint to dry up like these did grrr!

Don't listen to Ghidorah...he must not have moved out of his parents basement...

Your paints are salvageable, just grind the paint with the end of a tank brush and some water, no need for fancy water IMO, just tap water works fine (and has for me for years). Investing in some acrylic medium from an art supply store would also help, and for a $6 bottle you'll have a lifetime supply.

It takes some work, but your paints will come back to life.

Now to keep your paints fine? Simple cleaning of paint pots is the main thing. If you have screw top caps, make sure both the cap and bottle have no paint in the 'screw threads' because if there is, the bottle won't seal and the paint will evaporate.

Also add a drop or two of 'Retarder' to each paint pot. It is also bought at an Art Supply store for about $6. I use Windsor Newton brand but there are others i'm sure.


The retarder also works great while you are painting something as it keeps the paints watery and useable for hours, instead of minutes as per normal.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Ghost in the Darkness wrote:Correct me if I am wrong but most bottled water is usually nothing but filtered tap water in a container and a waste of plastic for all those bottles, and therefore still contains minerals and compounds that they sometimes add to it to make it taste better. Whereas de-ionised water should be pure H2O with nothing in it. Right?

In Europe, mineral water is naturally mineralised water produced by water filtering though layers of rocks. It has real minerals in it and the bottle will give an analysis of the various types of minerals on the label. These analyses are controlled by law. The taste of the water varies depending on the mixture of minerals.

When Coke tried to launch Dasani in the UK it was a massive disaster because it was found out that it was just filtered tap water, not real mineral water. There had been a comedy programmer about a bunch of tricksters launching a new mineral water which was just tap water.

Everyone laughed at Dasani and it had to be withdrawn from the market in about a week.

De-ionised water, or distilled water, which is used for topping up car batteries, is what you want for thinning paints. Mind you, I often use London tap water -- which is famously hard -- without ill effects.

yeah,
also Peckham Springs! hahaha

Dasani, was withdrawn from the market because the chemicals cokacola used to filter the tapwater were found to be carcinogenic... and the media backlash from selling people cancer...

Panic...