Pouring paints from a Tamiya bottle is never a drip free deal. I’ve decided to try decanting a couple of their acrylic colors into craft plastic squeeze bottles. These are very similar to the ones that Vallejo paints come in. These are currently on order but I will keep readers posted on how it goes. Has anyone else tried decanting Tamiya paints into a more functional type of bottle?
I haven’t decanted them but I use a pipette to get the paint from the Tamiya pot into my air brush. I use a separate pipette for the x-20a. It seems to work ok with minimal spills. The hard part is getting the pipette clean after using it.
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Pipettes are the way to go like @dadoffour said. I got a large bag from Amazon years ago, maybe 100, and I’ve actually used maybe 20. Using Tamiya paint I just put hem in an old ball quart jar filled with water, dawn dish detergent, and a couple of sprays of Windex for the ammonia. When I’ve drawn whatever paint I need I just drop it in the jar and try to suck up as much water into the pipette to just dilute the reimagining paint and keep it from drying.
When the jar is full I just dump them in the sink, make new water and usually just a few pulls and squirts usually gets them clean. If by chance there is some hard paint usually it flakes off when I flex the plastic. Repeat the washout. I do it when I clean my brushes with brush soap.
You can pour it against a brush pointing down into where ever it is the paint should go. Or you can use toothpicks, like I do. Use the toothpick for stirring, then hold the lip of the bottle against the toothpick pointing down into the receptacle while pouring. The toothpick can be discarded after that.
Have a bit of paper towel handy to wipe the lip of the bottle before replacing the cap.
This method allows the paint to flow neatly into the receptacle without paint dripping down the outside of the bottle.
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I also wanted to say that when I decided to return to modeling I did exactly the same thing, decanting paint into a few dropper bottles but without the labels I didn’t know which paint was which. I wrote on them with permanent marker and of course it whiped off because nothing is permanent and I wound up just throwing them all away. Don’t do it!
Also you’ll never get all of the paint out of the pots and Tamiya, and most acrylic paints dry fast so if you leave the jar open to the air the paint is going to skim up which will contaminate your paint. Nothing worse than a glob of paint shot out of your airbrush.
Spend money on a good paint mixer and pipettes rather then decanting.
And don’t get me started on how much is lost due to spillage. Good luck. You wanted a first person account and I’m sorry to tell such horror stories,
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Thanks. I tried the toothpick method, but I don’t think I have the correct “angle on the dangle”! I’ll give it another go.
Great idea! I’m going to give that a try
@chauncy thanks for the idea! I have the glass jar full of water but didn’t think about adding Dawn and Windex.
@dadoffour Dawn is the best dish soap I know. You only need a drop or two in a quart jar. I spray Windex because I tried straight ammonia once and nearly killed myself. Windex also smells better. I also use Windex for all my Tamiya paint cleanup. It just breaks it down immediately. It’s my go to paint color change airbrush cleaner. Small shot into cup, wipe, another shot, spray into cleaning cup, distilled water next sprayed into paper towel until the airbrush sprays clean.
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You shouldn’t need to decant Tamiya acrylic paints. They are not in spray cans.
Are you talking about pre-thinning Tamiya acrylic paints?
I never really bothered with pre-thinning, but I would not use a Vallejo style bottle. Those bottles don’t seal very well. So if you put a paint in there that is half thinner, ready for airbrushing, it might dry out a little. But that is just a theory I have.
I use bottles that have a sealed lid.
I usually keep my paints in their original jars, and mix for airbrushing as needed. But there are a few colors that I use a lot of, and those I will pre-mix. But those pre-mixed paints are still kept in a bottle with a screw tight seal.
Now the trick I use to clean up those little drips is I keep a rag on my left leg. I pour the paint into the cup on the airbrush. Then I wipe the little dribble off the bottle by rubbing it on the rag on my leg.
Okay, so here’s my recommendation:
- Find a tiny little tube, maybe 2-3mm ID by 3-4 feet long.
- Put the Tamiya bottle on a stool or something tall.
- Put the empty eyedropper bottle on the floor.
- Put one end of the tiny little tube in the Tamiya jar.
- Now, the tricky part is starting the siphon without getting paint in your mouth…okay, I can’t keep doing this, I’m laughing too much with this image in my head!
I just use pipettes. I have a box of 500 that I “adopted” when a lab I worked at shut down, so I’m never, ever going to run out. Shake vigorously, open jar, pipette out. With what you’re talking about, you might lose a lot (staying inside the pipette) if you transfer it all over in one “gulp,” so I would consider taking a lot of little “sips” to keep the paint that stays on the pipette fairly low.
Also, I haven’t been as good about it as I could be, but if you’re going to leave the jar open for any appreciable amount of time and will re-use the Tamiya paints (like most of us), try to wipe the lip of the jar. Any paint that dries can flake into the jar and leave solids in the mix that will pose a problem if they get into your airbrush cup!
Edit: @chauncy is right, and I’ve had similar experiences. I’d recommend sticking with the Tamiya jars and using pipettes. If you still want to pour, I suggest finding a funnel with a reasonably large neck (trying to pour paint into a 10mm funnel with a 1mm neck is likely worse than just trying to pour into a 17mL eyedropper, as it will want to back up).
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Typically I just pore some In my mouth then spit it into the other bottle. Cut out the middle man. You get used to it after awhile, heck now I can tell what color I have just by the taste alone.
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I am imagining Demo with a mirror over his paint booth and sticking out his tongue to see what color paint he has currently in his brush. LOL
Mixing ratios can get a bit tricky.
Good point. How does everyone precisely measure out portions when making a custom mix?
“Decant” was probably the wrong to use. I’m referring to Tamiya acrylics in the jar
I’m going to guess that @Demolition has a nose for mixes. I imagine it to be like wine tasting.
- Poor paint into mix cup.
- Swirl it around gently so it can breathe.
- Waft the aroma to your delicate nose while inhaling deeply.
- Record the scent.
- Lift the mixing cup to your lips to get just the right amount on your tongue .
- Swish it around in your mouth.
- Spit it back into the cup (this helps with getting the right paint consistency).
- Stick tongue out at mirror and inspect the color.
- Eat a box of saltines to clear the pallette.
Or something like that…
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I don’t worry about ratios as I’m using basically bottled paint, not custom mixed. For that you would need a much more accurate pipette where you can count drops but if you’re just spraying one color, more thinner just makes your paint more translucent and on a lot of single color projects,say armored fighting vehicles it creates tonal variations which break up the singular color. For custom mixes it would be important to record your ratios so you can repeat it. For me I’d mix more of whatever color you’d need as no 2 bottles of paint are exact copies of each other.
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I’ve only ran into a few kits that require mixing and they spell it out pretty well in ratios. Besides that I don’t mix paint, ( I do shade a bit) it’s too much of a pain if I have to do touch up or I forgot something then I got to try to match it exact. Just not my thing, and to transfer paints, like many others suggested I use pipette’s. Put some paint in the airbrush, put some thinner in, mix them with the pipette and spray away.