Someone I know puts a couple of very thin plastic sheets (cut up vegetable bags from the supermarket)under the tin lids of tins of varnishes, paints and glues that come stored in tins.
It makes the lids come on and off very easily and he claims they act like a 'washer' and hence give a more *airtight* seal. But since air passes through plastic bags (why long life bread is packaged in 'silvered' plastic bags) albeit slowly, would this be worth doing?
The reason paint goes off after being opened and used is the large quantity of new air when you replace the lid.
Your better dropping a peace of plastic in the bottom
Or fill the space with some inert gas?
Store the tins upside down.
Makes no difference once the tin is opened and new air introduced.
With oil based paints, it ensures that the skin is under the paint, not on top, when you come to use it.
Colin Bignell
I transfer leftover paints to nice clean glass jars. Takes up less space, and makes it easy to see the colour.
The reason for rotating tins was to help keep the oils and pigments mixed, otherwise they eventually seperate
But how do you then stir the paint to get the oil back in without breaking the skin and get loads of bits in the paint?
As for the plastic bag under lid can't see a reason for it provided the lid and rim are in good condition. I always wipe around the lid and rim to remove excess paint put the lid on firmly with a few taps from a small hammer. Don't have a problem with stuff going off and if there is a skin it is easy to remove in tact.
so what is actually needed (dragon's den here I come) is a paint tin that can be made shorter, perhaps collapsible corrugations ? or an inner cup that could be screwed inside the can and would then effectively raise the bottom surface of the can.
Oxygen is the enemy of unused paint. Here are some tips:
Something like a wine box?
Owain
Only if there's more than 1/2 a tin left when you put it away!
problem is that paint separates, so it needs to be something with a solid bottom and room to get a stirrer in. What about a tough plastic bag inside a tin?, you could then seal the bag in close proximity to the surface of the paint and undo it for stirring and use.
Only if you are an alien? Typical human exhalations have only 4%~5% carbon dioxide in place about the same amount of oxygen leaving ~15% oxygen (plus added water vapour).
Or use an inflated plastic bag to fill the void.
(I started off writing "blow up a plastic bag...", but I suspect this is one problem that wouldn't be best solved with explosives :)
OR: put a thin plastic bag into the can and tuck it in so that it contacts the paint and leaves the open end outside the can, putting the lid on inside the open end of the bag would mean that air could not get to the paint surface. A bit like the old idea of a greaseproof paper round on top of jam.
With sufficient air space in the tin the oil paint will skin over anyway, this will protect the remaining paint and depending on the type of paint you are supposed to either cut off and remove the skin then thoroughly stir or stir in the skin and then strain through a nylon stocking or purpose made paint strainer.
Without stirring it (or maybe after first stirring very carefully, without breaking the skin), you decant most of the paint off into another container. You then scrape off the sludge from the inside of the lid, add it to the paint you have decanted, and stir it in well.
After you have used the paint, if there's still some left, you can pour it back unto the original tin until the next time you need it.
Once opened, I suspect that a re-sealed tin often allows small amounts of air to get in. Storing it upside down probably helps the lid to be absolutely air-tight - just make sure it doesn't leak!
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