Identifying Paint

Sep 01, 2025 Last reply: 10 months ago 7 Replies
A

I have a 1l paint kettle full of white paint in my garage. It is either:



a) a matt white water based wood paint that was transferred from a metal tin becuase said tin was going rusty [1]



or



b) the dregs of a 10l bucket of cheap white emulsion that I used as a mist coat on new plaster



Is there any easy way of telling which it is - I need to paint some skirting boards and don't want to be using emulsion on them.



[1] Why _do_ they sell water based paint in metal tins? Fine for oil based but surely it is obvious that they will rust over time.
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T

They hope that you use all the paint with the first job, and if you store leftover paint they hope you through brand loyalty will buy a new tin once the original develops rust streaks.

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T

Try and see if there is a brand name or color name or some kind of code...

I took some old paint in tins to the trade counter and they said 'oh, we can match that easy;'

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T

In my experience the paint is unusable long before the tin rusts out

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A

It's in a plastic paint kettle so no codes at all.

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T

Oh. Just chuck it then.

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P

Try it on some other surface and see if that helps you to decide. Or put it on the skirting and if you don't like it sand it down and treat it as undercoat before applying something you prefer.

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A

That is pretty much what I ended up doing. A coat on the skirting then a quick rub down with a scouring pad. A lot of white came off which suggests that it is emulstion and not wood paint.

Will keep it for the rest of the mist coat and use my new tin of topcoat for the skirting after a good rub down.

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