Thinning acrylic paints?

[Imren]

Pro tip: if you get a second job you can afford to replace your GW paints as they quickly dry out.

 

Or you buy bunch of dropper bottles and go through the hazzle of decanting your GW paints in them with a slight amount of acrylic thinner, and they will be alright for decades to come. Cheaper than replacing the GW pots.

[Jolemai]

Those of you getting ball bearings to aid in the thinning/recovery process, what source do you use? i.e are they easier to acquire (i.e. Amazon, hobby shops) or do you go somewhere specific for them?

[RikuEru]

Those of you getting ball bearings to aid in the thinning/recovery process, what source do you use? i.e are they easier to acquire (i.e. Amazon, hobby shops) or do you go somewhere specific for them?

I have actually kept away from buying any on amazon, because all I could find had either a review or a Q&A saying that they are not entirely stainless steel and will rust over time = ruin your paints.

 

So I'd be very interested in this aswell

[Stoic Raptor]

I picked up a pack from Army Painter of 100 for $6.  I got a bag of 300 of eBay for about $12.

The trick is to go for the kind intended for machine parts - they're intended for heavy wear and a rusty bearing would be an issue, so you can be more confident that they're not cheaply made.

[Arkhanist]

Those of you getting ball bearings to aid in the thinning/recovery process, what source do you use? i.e are they easier to acquire (i.e. Amazon, hobby shops) or do you go somewhere specific for them?

 

I picked up a pot of 250 AK interactive stainless steel shakers for about £4 a while back, still got half a pot left. The handful I've retrieved from old pots have shown no sign of degradation. I could have picked up the same amount of chinese import balls for half the price at the risk of getting ones that might rust, so it wan't worth the faff personally.

 

I have some dropper bottles from assetdrop that come with a pair of small glass ones, they achieve roughly the same impact as a single steel shaker. I double up the steel ones on bigger pots or particularly gnarly paint; pretty much any time I open a new pot of GW paint it gets a shaker and some medium, saves me time later!

[Imren]

If you are into airbrushing, there is a disadvantage of using agitators in paint pots/bottles. You always have a compartment of trapped air in a dropper bottle or pot, especially if it is 2/3 full or less. This trapped air allows for paint on the bare inner walls of the bottle to dry. When you shake the bottle with an agitator inside, the agitator hits the inner walls and removes small flakes of dried paint off the walls. These flakes floats around in the shaken bottle and eventually squirts out of the bottle and into your airbrush's paint cup to clog your airbrush tip causing you to disassemble the airbrush tip and soak the tip in acetone to removed the clog/flakes of dried paint.

 

So if you airbrush, avoid agitators and just shake the hell out of the bottle and let that layer of dried paint in the bottle inner wall stay where it is.

[Quantum]

 

Pro tip: if you get a second job you can afford to replace your GW paints as they quickly dry out.

 

Or you buy bunch of dropper bottles and go through the hazzle of decanting your GW paints in them with a slight amount of acrylic thinner, and they will be alright for decades to come. Cheaper than replacing the GW pots.

 

 

Everyone seems lyrical about dropper bottles, but in my experience paint dries just as well on a palette as it does on a model. Every time I use a dropper bottle I end up with more paint wasted on the palette than on my model.

 

Of course you can add some water to keep it from drying out; GW online painting tutorials basically say this as a first commandment: 'thou shall thine thine paints on the palette', which I zealously observe. But it says nothing about the fact that thinning your paints is a very delicate issue, you easily add too little or too much. Either ways, despite my best efforts the my paints rarely have the consistency I need.

 

I recently switched to a wet palette to mitigate these issue. It helps, but it is not a miracle cure. Still a lot of paint goes wasted.

[Imren]

 

 

Pro tip: if you get a second job you can afford to replace your GW paints as they quickly dry out.

 

Or you buy bunch of dropper bottles and go through the hazzle of decanting your GW paints in them with a slight amount of acrylic thinner, and they will be alright for decades to come. Cheaper than replacing the GW pots.

 

 

Everyone seems lyrical about dropper bottles, but in my experience paint dries just as well on a palette as it does on a model. Every time I use a dropper bottle I end up with more paint wasted on the palette than on my model.

 

Of course you can add some water to keep it from drying out; GW online painting tutorials basically say this as a first commandment: 'thou shall thine thine paints on the palette', which I zealously observe. But it says nothing about the fact that thinning your paints is a very delicate issue, you easily add too little or too much. Either ways, despite my best efforts the my paints rarely have the consistency I need.

 

I recently switched to a wet palette to mitigate these issue. It helps, but it is not a miracle cure. Still a lot of paint goes wasted.

 

 

wasted paint on your palette is matter of how much paint you squirt out of the bottle onto your palette. Think of how much paint you will use and squirt accordingly. For example, If I'm basecoating all the gunmetal areas on 10x marines (boltguns, backpack details, helmet details etc) painted in an assembly line way, then I'd squirt out two droplets, If I'm doing the highlights in the eye lenses then maybe half or "a third" of a droplet. With dropper bottles you can adjust your "dosage" onto you palette same way as picking paint with brush from a pot.

[Spacecow]

I sometimes had ( especially with Vallejo metal in dropper bottles) it just keeps coming out. A bit like a champagne bottle foaming. There’s just nothing you can do to stop it. :/

[Arkhanist]

 

 

Pro tip: if you get a second job you can afford to replace your GW paints as they quickly dry out.

 

Or you buy bunch of dropper bottles and go through the hazzle of decanting your GW paints in them with a slight amount of acrylic thinner, and they will be alright for decades to come. Cheaper than replacing the GW pots.

 

 

Everyone seems lyrical about dropper bottles, but in my experience paint dries just as well on a palette as it does on a model. Every time I use a dropper bottle I end up with more paint wasted on the palette than on my model.

 

Of course you can add some water to keep it from drying out; GW online painting tutorials basically say this as a first commandment: 'thou shall thine thine paints on the palette', which I zealously observe. But it says nothing about the fact that thinning your paints is a very delicate issue, you easily add too little or too much. Either ways, despite my best efforts the my paints rarely have the consistency I need.

 

I recently switched to a wet palette to mitigate these issue. It helps, but it is not a miracle cure. Still a lot of paint goes wasted.

 

 

There's three big advantages of droppers:

1) The shape of the bottle means you have less air trapped at the top, and expose a lot less of the paint to the air when you open it to drip it onto your palette. Plus a much better seal as a rule. Combined, this means the paint dries out a hell of a lot slower over time - that's generally what people mean by 'saving paint' rather than literally what you put on a palette. I've certainly lost far, far more pots to the 'big rubber lump of doom' than actually using it all up.

 

2) No need for a separate brush to put paint on palette, and/or risk to getting paint under your nice brush ferrule when transferring paint to palette. This one in particular is a lifesaver for me as I'm terrible at using my expensive brush to quickly get a little more from the GW pot, and misjudging the depth...

 

3) knocking over the pot usually won't dump half the contents all over your desk, trousers and floor. Looking at you, 24ml druchii violet, or what's left of it, anyway.

 

I don't see that much of a difference with quantity of paint on palette, it's not a big advantage of droppers per se; maybe a little more control with a brush, but for more liquid paints in droppers you shouldn't need to squeeze barely at all, just  inverted will give you a little half bubble at the tip that you 'wipe' onto the palette that's about a brush load or less.

 

If you have to squeeze firmly to get anything out, then it all comes out in a big splurt  - the nozzle is likely partially blocked. Ream it out with a bit of narrow wire (thinner than paperclip wire usually, I usually use my 0.8mm pinning wire) or a sewing needle etc into the neck. If it's *really* gunked up, pull the whole nozzle out and clean it out gently from the inside. Sometimes if the nozzle isn't quite seated, air can get in and it dries up in a big lump there at the base of the nozzle.

 

This can also happen when the nozzle splits, usually from trying to force out a clog with a big squeeze! In that case, you're usually best off just putting on a new nozzle.

 

As you mention, the way to keep your paint usable longer is a decent wet palette, which while it will reduce waste somewhat, I find it more useful as a timesaver so i don't have to keep adding more paint, diluting it just right, then diluting it more as it starts to dry, then topping it up and now it's too thick etc - it stays at the right thinning level for longer, any paint saving is a minimal advantage personally.

 

The trick to getting the dilution level right is not to add thinner directly to the paint, but have a separate little puddle of it; then pull a little off with your brush into your working paint, mix, and test it*; if it's still thick, add a little more thinner from your source pool. If you overdo it, you can add a little more main paint of course, but you can avoid that if you add less thinner per 'go'. The wet palette then should keep it at that consistency. I do use a dry palette for metallics though.

 

* I put down a layer of newspaper on my desk out of habit since I was a teenager, so the working sheet rapidly gains many, many little stripes where I've removed excess paint, tested consistency and repointed the brush...

[Fajita Fan]

I'm actually putting my medium and shades in dropper bottles because I like adding drops to my paint on a palette rather just gooping it on a brush.  I've been using an eyedropper for awhile so I get the same consistency of shade/medium.