Thursday 14 November 2013

Keeping Quickshade fresh - Start of a long-term project


A lot of people appreciate the advantages of Armypainter Quickshade and so do I. It's an excellent shading fluid, protects the miniatures as kind of varnish and makes it much easier and faster to paint numerous miniatures in a reasonable ammount of time.
Nevertheless Quickshade has its downsides. It's not water based so you need a certain solvent to clean the brushes, it smells unpleasently and probably anhealthy but worst of all it tends to clod after a rather short time. I've read a lot of repords from people whose Quickshade clodded although they tried seal the can as good as possible. I presume it's just impossible to seal it hermetically after it was opened once and some paint was spilled over its rim. Unfortunately all my attempts to re-thin Quickshade were in vain. White Spirit didn't work although it was mentioned in the directions for use...

Before and after...
Anyway a friend of mine gave me the hint to decant the Quickshade into small plastic bottles. Those are cheap, rather easy to acquire and should be more or less air-tight. So I bought a package of small liqueur bottles, emptyed them into a larger bottle and removed the labels. Finally I bought a new tin and was well prepared for the last step. Yesterday evening I took a large syringe anddecanted the whole content of the freshly opened Quickshade can into eleven tiny bottles.
It woked better than I feared. The tin contained fresh and fluid paint. The pigments were easy to stir and the syringe took the Quickshade very well. Nothing was spilled over my workspace, no blothes on my clothes or hands. Actually a bit too perfect...

Anway I hope Holger will be right after all and the portions will stay fresh until I need them. From time to time I'll give you a short updaten here when I open a new bottle.

26 comments:

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    1. No mess at all. I was really surprised since I anticipated the complete opposite...
      ;-)

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  2. Hmm, seems like google flushed my comment..

    Great Idea, please report if the stuff REALLY stays fresh for several weeks.

    Cheers,
    Thomas

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    1. I'll post an update from time to time when I open a new bottle...

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  3. I've had two cans dry up on me now; I simply don't produce enough figures fast enough to prevent it. I will be looking forward to your updates, though, to see if this solution hopefully works...good luck ;)

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    1. That was exactly my problem with Quickshade. We'll see how long it's kept fresh in the little bottles...

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  4. Hmmm, emptying liqueur bottles.....I have to buy a can of Quickshade...:D

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  5. Now that is a clever idea, I will be interested to hear if it really work though Stefan.

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    1. I'll let you know when I open the next bottles. Probably at the beginning of 2014 since I'm a slow plainter as you know...

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  6. Very clever, until someone sees liquor bottles and decides to take a secret nip! ;-)



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    1. Therefor I placed the bottles far out of reach of children and placed a sign "Paint" in the box. That's nothing for kidding about with infants around...

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  7. An update on which bottle? The one with the liquer or with the quickshade? ;-D
    Such cans need to bestored always upside down. But I think you found a good solution!

    Greetings
    Peter

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    1. For the liqueur bottle it'll be a very short update after our next painting session I presume...
      ;-)

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  8. Clever idea. I've been decanting into a small paint jar and using my home-brewed version of QS in small lots. Seems to be working and the tin is staying fresh...

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    1. Thanks for the encouragement, that sounds promising.

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  9. Make sure you seal the mini bottles well.

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    1. Of course. I filled the bottles to the brim to press most air out of them and the caps look rather airtight too.

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  10. That's a bloody good idea Stefan, nice one!

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  11. Stefan if you turn the bottles upside down they will be okay for years ;)

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  12. I also like the idea, but it would be too much work for me. You can thin the quickshad easily with Terpentinersatz (don't know the english translation). I got mine from Toom and it works.

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    1. Terpentinersatz is White Spirit as far as I know. Anyway I tried Terpentinersatz and at least the brant I used didn't work. The Quickshade clodded even more...

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  13. I actually found that the tin is not too hard to seal. Just turn it upside down until,the next day and some of the Quickshade will seep into any gap between the can and the lid and dry out, sealing the tin. I was given this tip ages ago by a professional painter and it works.

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