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ive got a tin of the stuff and its great. problem is is started to thicken up in the tin, any ideas on what to use to get it back to the right consistency? i thought white spirits added to it.
also anyone used army painters ink range?
thanks for help on this one i cant justify 20 sterling on a new tin

White Spirits (aka Mineral Spirits, Turpentine, etc) is indeed what you use to thin it out a bit.

To keep the thickening at bay, take a rag or paper towel soaked with mineral spirits and clean the edge of the can and the lid to get a good seal. If Spirits doesn't do the trick then unfortunately your batch may have gone bad. This happens eventually and when it does, no amount of spirits and stirring will save it. Most likely, however, spirits will do the trick. Just add, stir and repeat until the consistency seems right.

If the cost is an issue, head to you nearest paint store and see if they have a similar dark brown, oil-based, stain-and-polyurethane combination product. Quickshade is just a particular formulation of stain-plus-poly but it costs quite a bit more as you have noticed. Here in the States we have the "Minwax Polyshades" line which has near-equivalents for all of the Quickshade tones. It's about 1/4 the price and is what folks used to dip their figures long before Quickshade was invented. (see the link in my sig for more info) I don't know if Minwax is available over there, but there is probably some similar product.

Good Luck.

I'd go with mineral spirits. Turpentine works, too, but is a bit more volitile. The spirits don't stink quite as strongly and seem less likely to wreak havoc on underlying layers, if used too heavily.

Eilif's brush-dipping article is a good one, but I have one small caveat: Polyshades Tudor isn't quite black. While thicker applications certainly read as black, the color is actually a very dark brown, which you can see in subtle gradients where the shade settles thinly. Still a perfect equivalent to AP's Dark Tone, though, and a handy shade to have around.

As for the Quickshade inks, I've used some of them. Very close, in both color and general behavior, to the previous GW wash line (Devlan Mud, Badab Black, etc.). Reasonably priced and work well - I feel perfectly comfortable recommending them to anyone looking for pre-mixed acrylic ink washes. They are, however, a totally different animal than the polyurethane dip Quickshade and aren't intended to be used in conjunction therewith. For models that won't be dipped, however, I find them as indespensible as any of my other washes (an assortment of DIY mixes, AP, Vallejo, and old GW).

cheers for the info guys, you may well ahve saved the day, tho you will have unleashed my next batch of skaven stromvermin onto the world