How to Revive Old Paint

For those who’ve ever painted a room in your home or condominium, you realize the ache of storing leftover paint. You pour the surplus from the rolling pan into the paint can, you faucet the lid again into place with a hammer, and also you stick the previous can someplace out of the way in which, the place you promptly neglect about it. Then the day comes when it’s good to contact up the room or repaint it completely, and also you haul that previous can out from its hiding place, solely to find that point has not been kind to your paint.

In case your previous paint hasn’t aged properly—it’s skinned over, chunky, or in any other case doubtful—however you actually don’t wish to spend cash on a contemporary can simply to do some contact up work, you may attempt to revive the paint. This occurred to me just lately: I had an previous five-gallon bucket of grey paint with a few gallon of paint left in it, and once I opened it up, it appeared like this:

My previous, chunky grey paint
Credit score: Jeff Somers

However I didn’t wish to run out to purchase a contemporary gallon for a small job, so I made a decision to carry this paint again to life.

First, a number of fast caveats: Not all paint may be introduced again to life. It must be principally liquid, even when it’s chunky and skinned over—if it’s completely hardened, simply toss it within the trash. Just a few different issues to test for:

• Mildew. For those who open the can and it smells like mildew (or worse) or has a progress on it, it’s not usable—even should you combine it up and get it into usable form, you can be portray mould spores onto your walls. Whereas fashionable paints usually include biocides to inhibit mould progress for years, numerous local weather situations or storage variables can impression their effectiveness.

• Thinned. You probably have already thinned the paint with water (for water-based paints) or paint thinner (for oil-based paints), you in all probability received’t be capable to carry it again.

• Frozen. If the paint froze at any level, it’s in all probability executed for. Paint that froze up could have a “cottage cheese” texture to it.

For those who see these indicators, toss the paint and resign your self to purchasing a contemporary can. In any other case, include me on a paint-resurrection journey.

Easy methods to revive previous paint

My paint had by no means been thinned, and whereas it was chunky, it was nonetheless liquid. It didn’t odor dangerous, so I believed I had a reasonably good shot at bringing it again. Right here’s what you want readily available to do that:

All the things it’s good to revive your previous paint.
Credit score: Jeff Somers

1. Bucket. That is the place you’ll acquire the revived paint.

2. Display. You should purchase disposable paint filters or paint filter bags, however you can too use an previous aluminum window display, or a bit of fiberglass display. I occurred to have a bunch of fiberglass display left over from one other mission, so I reduce a bit of that.

3. Drill with paddle bit. You possibly can stir the paint manually, nevertheless it’s rather a lot simpler to get a paddle attachment to your drill.

4. Paint thinner. In case your paint is water-based, you may skinny it with some heat water. Mine is oil-based, so I would like paint thinner—I had mineral spirits readily available, so I used that.

5. Painter’s tape. Any tape in any respect, actually, however painter’s tape is best to work with right here.

After you have all of your supplies, your first step is to skinny the paint slightly. Add a small quantity of water or paint thinner, then stir the paint, beginning off at a low setting and rising the ability progressively.

Thinning my paint with some mineral spirits.
Credit score: Jeff Somers

Stirring out a few of the chunks within the paint.
Credit score: Jeff Somers

This could eradicate the worst of the chunks in there. How a lot to skinny the paint is extra artwork than science—you don’t wish to over-thin it and make it watery. I didn’t attempt to eradicate each single chunk of hardened paint and was very conservative with the thinner. You possibly can at all times add slightly extra and repeat the stirring, however you may’t take away extra thinner after you’ve poured it in.

Subsequent, you display the paint. Connect your display to your bucket—in my case, I simply wrapped the fiberglass display across the lid and taped it into place:

My high-tech paint screening system.
Credit score: Jeff Somers

Then, I poured the partially thinned paint into the bucket via the filter:

Screening my paint.
Credit score: Jeff Somers

I let the paint drip via the filter for a couple of minutes. This screened out the remaining chunks, leaving me with a provide of usable paint in my bucket:

My thinned, screened, and stirred paint, prepared to make use of.
Credit score: Jeff Somers

I didn’t want a lot; actually, should you’re going to repaint the entire room, you in all probability shouldn’t depend on previous paint you’ve thinned and screened. However for a small touch-up job, this spared me from having to expire and purchase a contemporary can of paint. It labored properly, the paint adhered with out issues and matched up moderately properly with the previous coat. I plan to prime and paint the room once more subsequent yr, so it doesn’t need to final endlessly, both. As soon as I used to be executed, I disposed of the remnants at my metropolis’s recycling middle so it’s now not haunting my closet.