I'm bored too. I've just finishing cataloguing all my 1970s vintage Humbrol paints.
Why, you may ask?
This might be a stupid question Peter but will the paints be usable ?
Unfortunately I put a lot of my modelling paints in a shed four years ago when I cleared out my garage for the Morgan. The shed isn’t insulated and had wild fluctuations in temp and I ended up throwing them out and replenishing with new just recently
To my surprise, most of them are.
the tins were kept in the loft, so have had a hard time, even so they seem to fall into 3 groups.
1. Seemingly a solid plug of almost dry pigment in the bottom
2. As above, but with plenty of liquid above.
3. Just needing a good mix..
I bought a paint mixed, rather like a miniature "stick bender" but fitted with a wavy disk at the end. I also bought a couple of jars of Humbrol's thinners, because it contains not just highly purified white spirit but about 15& of another molecule that helps keep pigments in suspension.
For "Group 3" about 1 min of mixing, with possibly a small amount of thinners, restores them to "as new".
For Group 2 I used a stainless spatula to chop up the lump, then treated as Group 3. It takes 2 or 3 cycles of chopping and mixing, plus thinners as needed, but all are now good.
For Group 1 it has been more difficult and a couple refuse to go properly into suspension. It has been suggested that adding clear humbrol varnish to the mix is the trick, i'll try this.
Read more about the journey here:
http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235032333-restoring-old-paint/Enjoy!
