Paint gone bad?

[Lior'Lec]

     I searched but didn’t see this topic yet, mods feel free to delete this if it’s already been asked.

     I’ve been moving my GW paints from their native bottles into dropper bottles and one of my paints has thick but not hard bits in it, similar in consistency to curdled milk. I added an agitator and put it on the shaker for a good five minutes but the consistency was the same afterwards. Is this paint bad and beyond repair or could I salvage it by buying/using a mixer? The bits aren’t hard, I can still mash them with my fingers but they don’t seem to disperse into the liquid. The liquid itself seems ok, but I’m still a novice and don’t know if I should “fix” or replace this paint. 

[Ragnar Alpaca]

Is it ceramite white by chance?

[xaljorn14]

My ceramite white was exactly like that.   A lot of effort later it was usable....

[Lior'Lec]

     No, it’s a couple of grey colors actually. Haven’t made it home from work yet so don’t recall exactly which colors. The two lightest I believe (one was the light grey often suggested to use as base for painting whites).

[Cordova]

If it's gone thick, add acrylic medium* to it, and give it a good mix - it should be fine.

I had some Vallejo paints that were starting to "go" - they were actually going "stringy" if you dipped something into them.  I just kept on adding Vallejo Thinning Medium (acrylic binder) to it and mixing it with a Tamiya paint mixer (but any stirrer would do) until it reached the correct consistency. 

* for GW, you could get Lahmian Medium.  If you're going to use lots, look at Vallejo Thinning Medium (60ml bottle), or Winsor & Netwon/Golden/Liquitex artist's mediums (~200ml bottle).

 

 

[RuneBrush]

From experience not all citadel colours keep well in droppers.  As time's gone on I've reverted back to leaving some of them in pots.  I've found it more common in their base paints.

[zedatkinszed]

11 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

From experience not all citadel colours keep well in droppers.  As time's gone on I've reverted back to leaving some of them in pots.  I've found it more common in their base paints.

Ditto. Honestly I leave the GW paints in the pots. I just Vallejo for airbrushing. There's a chart on dakka dakka that shows equivalence between brands that IMHO is pretty good; https://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Paint_Range_Compatibility_Chart

[BunkhouseBuster]

I have been able to save many pots of Citadel paint from the fate of the GW pots.  I haven't added acrylic medium to any paint in years, and just use distilled or bottled water and keep them hydrated as I use them.  It takes a vigorous shaking and sometimes more water than seems appropriate, but helps with keeping the paint coats thin.

[Cordova]

On 10/10/2018 at 12:19 AM, BunkhouseBuster said:

I haven't added acrylic medium to any paint in years, and just use distilled or bottled water and keep them hydrated as I use them.  

The problem with using water is that it will alter the properties of the paint.  For example, using Vallejo's Heavy Charcoal, thinned 2:1 with thinning (acrylic) medium, I can paint around the rim of a base in 1 pass with good coverage and no brush strokes visible.  If I thin it in the same manner but using water, the paint will actually "pull down" from the top of the base before it dries, forming a series of elongated "u" shapes, and has reduced coverage.  Obviously, Vallejo paints are not GW paints, but they should all behave similarly.

Obviously, the above is a fairly extreme example, and probably not applicable if you're just adding a few drops, but just something to bear in mind if you're repeatedly "rejuvenating" your paint.