Time to stock up??

going away. Recently Testors (the folks that currently manufacture Floquil paints) sent an announcement to its distributors. This is the contents of that announcement:

Another one bites the dust - I lucked out when they closed the Floquil Naval Line. A wholesale place in Florida sold out the remainig stock at 50 to 85 cents a bottle.

Val Kraut

going away. Recently Testors (the folks that currently manufacture Floquil paints) sent an announcement to its distributors. This is the contents of that announcement:

Soon, the only hobby acrylic paint left would be from the folk art manufacturers. They make hundreds of colors. What we would then need is the formulas for mixing military colors. Maybe we would be the ones who find the correct mixtures and then we each could make up a mixture chart in PDF format. My wife used to teach folk art and she bought hundreds of 'Americana' and 'FolkArt' colors for her classes, even an 'Americana' display case full. I even called on her to help me mix special colors for modeling. Unfortunately, for many reasons, she died in February. A.C.Moore, Hobby Lobby, and Michaels have a whole section of folk art paint.

This brings up the point of how do you keep paint long-term? Does unopened paint keep? I wouldn't think so, but I haven't any unopened bottles around a significant amount of time. Would vacuum packagin them, via e.g. a FoodSaver, allow them to be kept practically indefinitely or would that still have a shelf life?

We have some world class miniature figure painters in our local club who are totally convinced that these acrylics are just as good as the expensive hobby brands

is going away...

This depends on the type of paint and how it's stored. I have some Model Ma sters that are shot after a years and I have some Polly S that are good and approaching fifteen years old. Admittedly I don't open them much and I als o insert a rattle ball (from a spray can) on the first opening and then thi n them a bit each subsequent time that I open them again. The rattle ball i s the key, I think. And recycling is our friend.

Regards, John Braungart

going away...

I have one that I've never opened that are at least a decade old and still seem good in the bottle.

Something else I've heard to do when storing paints is to get as much of the air out of the bottle before recapping them - supposedly exhaling into the bottle before you cap it will put CO2 in there and make the paint keep longer on the shelf. I suppose a short low-pressure shot of Propel might do the trick even better...

...I've heard something similar about recapping wine in the bottle as well, but I don't do this for either.

I still have functional bottles of Testors silver with prices on the cover of 10 cents and 25 cents. Figure the age....? No special conservation procedures. Have other much more recent Model Master colors that are "hockey pucks".

T2

This brings up the point of how do you keep paint long-term? Does unopened paint keep? I wouldn't think so, but I haven't any unopened bottles around a significant amount of time. Would vacuum packagin them, via e.g. a FoodSaver, allow them to be kept practically indefinitely or would that still have a shelf life?

going away...

I've got some unopen original Floquil from the late 1960 s - still good. Fine pigments and good chemistry.

I remember some of the "Offical Paints" from the late 60s that once stirred would turn into a gealtinous blob within days. Interesting chemical problem they didn't understand.