038 Paint Recovery

Now I mentioned a while back about how I was trying to resurrect some of the old paints that I had kept stored for more years than I care to remember, well today we see some of the results.

Now I must admit the sample size is small and not all of these paints are the same age (but the must be pretty damn close) but the results were interesting.

First stage was to add about 10ml of water to the crusted up painting pot, shake vigorously and leave to soak for 5-10 mins.

After that I set about each pot with a tooth pick stirring and mashing as best I could, and some of these were like rock I can tell you!

So far all the reds and browns after a hard stir all seem to have recovered, greens on the other hand seem to be mostly mush at best and will be needing more work. Strangely the weaker colours that I thought would struggle came back with next to no stirring, yellows, purples and the like; possibly because they have lower pigment counts and so didn't harden as much??

You can see here the first half dozen or so on the recovery line!

And while I am snapping, you can also see the first five under-coated 30th Regiment (Cambridge) getting moved along. I went with a black undercoat as a bit of an experiment as ordinarily I would have gone with white for a model that will be mostly red and white/light grey, as I have seen lots of suggestions as to this being a good way to start the shades and tones off. We will see!

On a side note, I think I need to start drinking more, I am getting short of corks!