Does anyone have any tips on bringing life back to dead paint?

I have had my Reaper Pro series of paints sitting mostly unused for a couple of months, and when I went to use them again, some of them are either hardened, solidy but squishy, or gooey at the bottom and watery on top. I have been trying to stir them a little and then shake them, but I'm getting lumpy paint.

Any ideas?

Arabin

Well, most mini paints are water based. The reason they harden is from the water evaporating so add a bit of water til you like the results I suppose. Though I'm not entirely positive so wait til someone else confirms my thoughts.

When dealing with water based acryllic paints, m0nk3yb0y is absolutely right.

The gooey/watery stage is nothing else but the pigments separating from the water. In most of these cases, stirring the whole thing up to get back to a homogenous water/pigment mix should be enough. If this doesn't help, the paint probably already went some way towards stage #2...

At the solidy but squishy stage, all the pigments have settled on the bottom of the pot with just a little water trapped inside (basically forming a sediment) but all the pure water on top has evaporated. Just add some water and stir as above.
With Citadel paints, I found that a volume ratio of 1/3 Water to 2/3 Pigment Sediment usually does the trick. With other manufacturers, these numbers may vary.

Completely dried out paint is a bit trickier. Since the paint is now a solid block, it won't mix with the added water the way the sediment would. The only way to rescue this paint is to cut and grind it up until it turns into pigment dust. This dust can then be mixed with water. Obviously, the finer the dust the better it will mix. Especially look out for clumps - these boogers can hold on for quite a while, even inside completely reliquified paint.


Of course, if your paint dried out, this usually means that the pot wasn't propely sealed. In a sealen pot, the water can separate from the pigment, but it still remains inside the pot. The most frequent reason for faulty pot seals is paint residue on the rim of the pot (or the neck, if your paint comes in a bottle) or on the inside of the cap or lid. If you find any such residues, get rid of them as fast as possible!

Thanks for the tips. I have managed to get some of them back to usable by adding water and stirring... but not all of them yet. One of them is kind of like lumpy cake mix, too lumpy to paint with, but stirring and adding water doesn't seem to clear it up. I'll just keep doing it and hopefully it'll come around.

Jackace, you are right, I have quite a bit of paint around the rim on the ones that had issues... I'll go through them all and try to clear that off.

Thanks again.

Arabin

The gooey ones might be able to be salvaged. But the hardened ones, I'd say are shot.

What I've done in the past (with Folk Art acrylics when the pigment seperates and starts to settle at the bottom) was to microwave the paint in its bottle (to get it warm, not hot or boiling) and then use the other end of a paint brush as a mixer. Mix it up a bit, then put the lid back on and shake it vigerously for a few minutes. Then check it. You may need to add water.. (or as Grump suggest, Future Floor Wax).

~Floyd

I had some Tamiya acrylics that didnt rejuvinate no matter what I did, but most of my less expensive (Apple Barrel, etc, the ones I get at Michaels, Walmart, etc.) did quite well. Havent had the problem yet with the one or two Valejo paints or the GW paints. One brand makes a "rejevinator" additive, which I used on some red paint where the bottle had a split in it. It worked well, and putting a piece of good tape on over the slit in the bottle fixed that problem. I cant recall the brand off the top of my head at the moment, but at Michaels, it is located across the aisle from the same brand of paints, along with other stuff from that brand (clear gloss coats, texturizing, etc.). Another little secret I learned several years ago with these bottles is to store them top down. First, it is easier to see the color when you have a box or drawer full of bottles, and the pigment actually helps seal the lid. It is also easy enough to see when paint is seperating and that they need a good shake or stir before they start hardening.

Ive rescued some harden ones to a useable state, but it took about a week of everyday adding some more water, and restirring.
To start off wth tho' I took an old paintbrush, one that was pointed on the hand end and poked holes in the hard paint and filled the pot with water and left overnight, then went back and tried stirrring a bit and repeated until useable.

A lot of work, and unless it's an OOP colour I wouldn't really bother, I'd buy a new pot.