Now that the decorator's been I have 5 half full (or is that half empty) 5L tins of emulsion (yes he did buy too much).
I shall want to keep some of each to touch up future accidents, but what's the best way to do this?
I don't really have space in my cupboards for 5*5L tins (I don't have any outside storage).
If I transfer it to jam jars will they seal well enough for it to keep multiple years?
Any better ideas?
tim
I've used plastic milk containers for this purpose and I keep them out of sunlight. Be aware that your existing paint will change colour/fade and a touch up with the original may be noticeable. However its likely that only you will notice.
I've never found a decent long-term storage option. I've tried storing the tins upside down, with cling-film over the paint, with clim-film under the lid, in jam jars - none of it works. Also, if it's water based paint in a metal container (including the original tin), it *will* go rusty and contaminate the paint. Also, as alan_m says, the existing paint changes colour which means the stored stuff is useless anyway (as we discovered after some recent patching up.)
Finally, I notice that the Farrow & Ball we painted our kitchen units doors with advises that it should only be stored for 6 months. Haven't needed to touch any up yet, so not sure if it's "gone off" or not.
Our utility room was painted some 5 years ago, a rich maroon colour. Last week I dug out the remaining paint, stored outside in the hut in the plastic 'tin' in came in, to patch up some damaged areas. A good stir, plus remove any flaking paint from the wall and even I cannot see where I have patched it up.
Other paint stored in metal tins, looks less than promising.
I find these new fangled plastic tins and lids completely useless for keeping paint. One might suspect they want it to go off. In the old days, you only had to bash the lid on, invert it for a few mins and then turn it back over and it was good to go.. Brian
Blimey, maybe you should just use it somewhere else instead then.....
Brian
I used to use compressed nitrogen squirted into a bottle of wine to prevent it oxidising as described in this article:
Perhaps someone has devised a similar way of using some inert gas to prevent an opened tin of paint from drying?
I wonder if those wine in a box things would work? A bladder full of wine in a box and as the bladder empties, they just collapse rather than drawing air in.
Trick is to fill any container so no air remains and seal properly.
The water content of emulsion will rust jam jar lids. Use coffee jars with plastic lids, assuming the plastic does not degrade to fragments over the time-scale. Cut discs of carrier bag plastic , lay over the surface of emulsion or oil-based paint, then chuck any accression along with the disc is easy
I use plastic milk bottles, too. You can also more easily see how much you've got left. Takes a while to pour, though.
Fill as many tins as necessary from the half empty ones. If you end up with a half tin throw it away because you won't need it. You should end up with two full tins. Make sure the lids are on and store them upside down. Don't let frost get to them.
Bill
This only works if they're the same colour, of course.
Which begs the question why the decorator had multiple tins of the same colour on the go.
Owain
This was emulsion paint which just sets by the evaporation of water. Even more recent spirit based paints set by evaporation of the solvent. You have to go back to linseed oil type paints to find something which actually cured by oxidation.
I see there's even a compressed gas product sold for exactly this purpose called Bloxygen Finishing Product Preserver!
Alernatively do you think a thin layer of a spray silicone lubricant might be a useful barrier? It may not be not the best thing to mix with emulsion paint but the quantity is insignificant.
More impermeable would be a disc of kitchen foil but that link says greaseproof paper doesn't work well in practice.
Problem with that approach for paint is that there would be no easy way to tint it, or get the paint out to use it either.
That would be disastrous for painting (also for glueing, soldering and plating).
Carrier bag plastic might well just fall to bits by 'design' - or by sunlight. Possibly plastic from a good quality freezer bag might last a lot longer, but also beware of sunlight - a freezer is another place where the sun shouldn't shine.
the first bit I got (that's another reason for putting it in the smaller container)
It's achieving the second bit I'm unsure about
tim
problem is that many of the new coffee jars come with "snap on" lids that make a useless reseal
I used to have a large collection of screwed caped ones, but they got dumped at each house move
tim
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