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Recently I've had quite a nasty surprise when I've opened a couple of fairly new (not more than five month old) pots of GW paints and found that they had turned almost completely solid. By adding a bit of water and stirring with the handle of a brush I've managed to get them (more or less) back to life but I'm wondering if anybody has any advice about this. I work in the garage which sometimes gets cold but I'm not sure if that's the problem. It's been quite mild since February and my other paints survived much colder periods in the winter without drying out. Could it be that I hadn't closed the lid properly? I thought I did. Am I doing something else wrong and does anybody have any tips as to how to avoid this. The hobby is expensive enough without having to buy replacements for nearly full pots of paints.

I'm also thinking of investing in a vortex mixer. Does anybody have any experience with these. Are they worth it?

I've found GW paints in general just don't last very long. I have vallejo paints in dropper bottles from 10 years ago and they function almost like new. I have pots of citadel paints from 2 years ago that have separated and seem to be no good. Also if the inside of the lid gets gunked up from shaking the paint then it won't seal properly, leading it to dry out even faster.

There is another active thread on electric paint shakers discuss vortex mixers I suggest you check it out.

I haven’t had the problem you described with GW paints but if you have been closing the caps properly and they fired up that quickly then take them back to the shop as I don’t think that is an acceptable level of quality and I don’t think GW would either.

First off, check inside the lid and around the top edge of the pot where the two seal together. Paint can get in there, dry, and prevent a proper airtight seal.

If that's clean, odds are you just didn't quite close them properly. I'm constantly finding paint pots i didn't quite close all the way. Occupational hazard, especially if one's painting time is subject to regular interruption.

As far as saving the paints go, if they've completely solidified you're pretty well stuffed. In theory you can dry it completely, grind the resulting sold back into a pigment powder, and then add acrylic medium to create a new paint of the same color. In practice... well, getting it ground consistently and finely enough for hobby work is not practical for most people.

if it's still a semi-solid, adding more medium to restore it to it's original consistency can work, but you'll have to stir and shake the ever-loving daylights out of it. Depending on how bad it's gotten, this should work to varying extents. Sometimes it'll come right back to normal, sometimes it'll seem okay but dry almost immediately on the brush, sometimes it'll never quite come back to a useable condition. Adding drying retarder can help some issues, flow-aid helps with others. You have to play around with it and see what, if anything, works.

And if you have more money to spend replacing the paint than time to futz around saving it, that's also an option.

Jandgalf wrote:
Could it be that I hadn't closed the lid properly? I thought I did. Am I doing something else wrong and does anybody have any tips as to how to avoid this. The hobby is expensive enough without having to buy replacements for nearly full pots of paints.

I'm also thinking of investing in a vortex mixer. Does anybody have any experience with these. Are they worth it?

I've found with the GW pots, if you just close them at the front of the lid they can feel fully closed, but there can still be a small gap by the hinge where it hasn't popped down all the way, it's at a slight angle. So I always give it an extra squeeze at the back to make sure it's fully down. If paint does dry in the rim in the lid - particularly round the hinge - that will make the closing even worse, though it does tend to take a little while for that to build up. But it's worth checking and scooping out with a small blade screwdriver or the like.

For thinning them back down when they've gone gloopy lahmian or matt medium (and optionally a few drops of flow aid) will tend to do a better job of resurrection than just water, though that's fine if it only needs a tiny bit. And a hell of a shake with a mixer ball added helps too of course.

I'm slowly ploughing through decanting my GW paints to dropper bottles; mainly because of the drying out issue, and spill risk for the unstable 24ml pots in particular. I religiously use a garfy paint puck, but even so it makes me twitch - spilling GW shade on carpet again is one of those things I truly dread! FWIW, I have ancient GW pots from the 90s (the P3 style), and they're still absolutely fine and liquid, not that I actually use them often now! The screw on hex ones though, they all dried out super fast, the black flip top ones weren't much better, and the current pot lasts longer but still dries over time. Never had a dropper bottle dry out yet (a handful of clogs, so swapped the tip). So it's pot design, not GW paint inherently I think.

I'm a big fan of my vortex mixer because I'm getting old and can't shake em like I used to, though it wasn't cheap at the time. Totally worth it though, it does a far better job mixing, metallics and contrast in particular are a huge difference, and I'd hate to be without it now. I said a bit more in the other thread.

Green stuff world make this that may help restore your paints

https://www.greenstuffworld.com/en/auxiliary-paints/730-paint-revitalizer-60ml.html?search_query=Paint+Revitalizer+60ml&results=1

I bought a set of empty dropper bottles that I transfer my Citadel paints into now.

https://hugeminis.com/shop/accessories/dropper-bottles/

Citadel bottles by design create poor seal - dare I say on purpose to increase sales.

I always press down hard on the nub after closing it to squeeze out a bit more air, and I store them inside drawers away from direct sunlight.

I always put 1-2 drops of retarder or flow aid between paint breaks.