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Hello.

All the metallics were badly seperated, I have shook everything now, but still haven't opened them to stir them.
Two lids were not set properly on two pots of paint and some came very thick and some very seperated.

I have only inspected them on the outside and shook them, haven't broken the seal as I'm not quite sure what to do.

Anyone got any experiance with seperated GW paints and how well they work afterwards?

Yeah my new pot of copper tone is separated too. Shaking it only remixes it partially. I'm fairly certain that they cheapened their paint line recently. My older citadel pains are holding up well, but the 2 newest pots I have, coincidently ones that I bought after the new paint roll out are either separated or completely dried out.

I'm not sure if you can get it to mix back completely. I haven't been able to.

Ah, thats a shame... I too have the older pots, the ones before the newest ones and I too haven't had any problems with those....

I'm wondering if I could go back to the shop where I bought my paint and ask for a refund...

Metallics have always had a problem with separation. Just stir them, hopefully the pigment and metallic hasn't dried in the bottom, then shake them, then stir them, see if they come back to life.

I've had metallics from every generation of citadel paints and some of them have always separated. I have Tamiya metallics and they separate. Aqueous Hobby Colour ones, they separate really fast, can pretty much see it separate on the palette. The metallic touch up paint I bought for my car separates as well.

Yeah, if they're fully separated just shaking won't cut it. Give them a stir, and for the ones that have thickened up add a few drops of water, stir, add a little more water, etc, until they come good.

Some might still be gone... if they've been sitting separated for long enough, they might have started to set, so they never stir back in properly. Tin Bits (or whatever ridiculous name it has now) has always been a sod for that. I had pots of Tin Bits that went off without having ever been opened...

But usually just the stir and water will do the trick.

An agitator helps with that too. I got myself a bottle of steel ball ammunition (1-2mm in diameter) and put 1-2 in every bottle I opened. Makes the shaking more effective without waisting paint with stirring. Dunno if that really helps with badly separated metallics, but it might help.

 Thairne wrote:
An agitator helps with that too. I got myself a bottle of steel ball ammunition (1-2mm in diameter) and put 1-2 in every bottle I opened. Makes the shaking more effective without waisting paint with stirring. Dunno if that really helps with badly separated metallics, but it might help.

...... Why have I not thought of this!? My brass scorpion paint always needs to be mixed before using and I waste so much paint getting it to stir proper. You sir may have saved me a real headache.

Happy to help, that trick is something I learned on this very forums myself not too long ago. Spread the knowledge before getting bonked on the head by wild Techpriests

Take it back, GW are happy to replace any paints you aren't happy with - at least my local store is. I've exchanged several.

Make sure you don't use an agitator that will corrode and taint your paint over time.

Yeah, be careful with steel - I tested some steel options and they rusted quite quickly in water. Check out this dakka article for more paint mixing ideas:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Agitators

For agitators, try Hematite beads. You can get them from the bead aisle at Michael's or your equivalent crafty store. They're weighty, tiny to fit through any opening, rust proof and reasonably priced. Drop 2-3 in a pot and you're good to go!

tip the pot to one side so the medium flows out of the way and then scoop out however much pigment you need onto your palette and or wet palette.

the liquid on top in the metallic appears to be mostly gloss varnish to make the metals more shiny. so you can always dilute the metallic on your palette with some of that. or drying retarder, water, etc.

i never shake any of my GW paints... ever. shaking them is actually bad, all youre doing is encouraging the paint to dry to the side of the pot and also in the top of the cap. you will be wasting your paint and also getting dried crud into the good stuff.

kb305 wrote:
... all youre doing is encouraging the paint to dry to the side of the pot and also in the top of the cap. .

Unless the paint is far too thick, it just runs back down into the bottom when the bottle is sitting between uses.

kb305 wrote:
tip the pot to one side so the medium flows out of the way and then scoop out however much pigment you need onto your palette and or wet palette.

the liquid on top in the metallic appears to be mostly gloss varnish to make the metals more shiny. so you can always dilute the metallic on your palette with some of that. or drying retarder, water, etc.

i never shake any of my GW paints... ever. shaking them is actually bad, all youre doing is encouraging the paint to dry to the side of the pot and also in the top of the cap. you will be wasting your paint and also getting dried crud into the good stuff.

Cant say Ive experienced this.

I have however found that opening the pot without tilting it TOWARDS yourself will make the rim fill up with paint as it runs back along the little lip. The citadel pots are actually quite airtight untill you have this paint in the rim, which can be totally avoided by opening the pot correctly.
Instinct is to tilt the pot away form yourself as its more comfortable to hold that way, but forcing yourself to tilt it towards you forced the paint to run back down into the pot rather than up into the rim. Doing this solves 95% of citadel paint pot issues I find.

(that said; theyre still rubbish compared to droppers as using a brush to move paint to palette is more wasteful than dropping it right on.)

Lots of edits for spelling (its late and Ive just finished work haha)

HairySticks wrote:
(that said; theyre still rubbish compared to droppers as using a brush to move paint to pallette is more wasteful than dropping it right on.)

See, I thought that too... right up until I managed to pop the top off a tube of slightly-gluggy Vallejo grey paint while trying to drop some out onto a pallette...

For any really separated paints, I just take a toothpick, really dig around in the pot and stir. It's worked great, even on VERY separated paints that I was about to throw out.

The main two for me is one of my Golds and Leadbelcher. The Leadbelcher re-mixes fine with a good shake and maybe a stir, however the Gold has to be properly stirred and I'm sure it's not the same colour any more :(

 Spuj wrote:
The main two for me is one of my Golds and Leadbelcher. The Leadbelcher re-mixes fine with a good shake and maybe a stir, however the Gold has to be properly stirred and I'm sure it's not the same colour any more :(

Same thing with my brass scorpion :(
I'm going to try the agitator trick and see what happens

@ Legoburner; I could not find smooth lava stones, but lava stones with holes in them, do you think they will work too?

Kern wrote:
@ Legoburner; I could not find smooth lava stones, but lava stones with holes in them, do you think they will work too?

I'd give them a quick wash first to make sure there is no dirt in them, but yeah they should work fine.