I’m a big fan, through necessity, of getting the maximum bang for my modeling buck. Mostly this means using the Hobby Lobby 40% coupon for nearly every modeling purchase. While going through my toolbox today, I pulled out all my paints that I had used up or had dried up due to age. Rather than pay $6 or $7 for the Testors pre-packaged, brand new mixing jars, I decided to attempt to clean and recycle the ones I had.
Since I use almost exclusively the MM Acryl brand paints, straight ammonia was my cleaner of choice. A word of caution: this stuff is still extremely nasty, so a well-ventilated area is a must while performing the following procedure. I imagine if you try this with paint jars that contained enamels, you’d have to use lacquer thinner, or at the least, mineral spirits.
Anyway, I filled a container with a mixture of 4/1 ammonia to water. Pretty strong. After a pre-rinse in the bathroom sink, I dropped my ten jars into the mixture, allowing them to soak for an hour or so. When I returned to the garage, the labels were floating off the jars and paint was peeling off as well. With some scrubbing, any stubborn dried paint pretty much came right off. Even the adhesive for the labels dissolved, no problem.
I rinsed the jars in water, then left them to dry. I plan on using a cotton swab with some lacquer thinner to clean the lids, after which I should have ten perfectly good mixing jars for whatever project comes along. Beats the heck out of paying for new ones. So, I just thought I’d share what I did today. Here’s a pic of the cleaning project while in process:
DSCF9424 by theirishavenger, on Flickr
Chris