Rescuing old Citadel Colour paints?

Zhu Bajie

Member
I've dug out a handful of vintage Citadel Colour paints from the bottom of an old art supplies box. One of them is a completely rock solid pot of Spearstaff Brown:

.

There's a solid lump of Worm Purple and Sunburst Yellow as well. Is there any way to rescue this paint or is it destined for the bin?
 

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Orjetax

Member
Zhu Bajie":3hqaonxw said:
I've dug out a handful of vintage Citadel Colour paints from the bottom of an old art supplies box. One of them is a completely rock solid pot of Spearstaff Brown:

.

There's a solid lump of Worm Purple and Sunburst Yellow as well. Is there any way to rescue this paint or is it destined for the bin?


A product was recommended recently on the Oldhammer Facebook group for this.

I seem to recall it being ‘acrylic paint reviver’ but after a quick google search with that term I didn’t see anything.

So this is not a very useful response, but yes there’s something out there that’s arguably useful.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

Plaiecivile

Member
I saved a lot of old paint pots with the newer Citadel Technical Lahmian Medium...
Although they were not rock solid, I was not getting any color from a direct contact.

After adding medium about 1/4 of the remaining dried out volume,
a couple of vigorous shaking and mixing with a small metal rod to break down the chunks of paint,
I was able save at least half of the dried out paint.

Good luck!
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
Thanks for the suggestions.

I've taken some advice and mashed up the solid lump walong with some Vallejo Airbrush Thinners using the handle of an ol brush, and while it's still very lumpy paintable liquids are starting to form - a step in the right direction!


I'm going to try using a metal bead as an agitator and the washing machine on spin-cycle as a vibration source to blend / liquify. Will try more manual mixing if that doesn't work.

Once the pigment particles have been separated by the thinners it will need a new medium to carry it, I don't have any acrylic medium at the moment so will have to pick some up.
 

Zhu Bajie

Member
Zhu Bajie":2a8grd3u said:
I'm going to try using a metal bead as an agitator and the washing machine on spin-cycle as a vibration source to blend / liquify.

This was rather optimistic, and didn't work at all.

I did chop then grind in a mortar and pestle, adding small quantities of matte acrylic medium and acrylic airbrush thinners. This successfully made paint, but while some of it is smooth, it is quite bitty and not really fine enough for miniature painting. Perhaps with more grinding, or potentially putting it through something like a Nutribullet, or rigging up something with a dremel to smooth out the plastic at a subatomic level (lol), it would be useable. As it is, it's only good for basing.
 
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