After washing out an empty paint pot, i noticed that there is a date stamped on the bottom. Seems the same for the few new pots I have. Any idea what this is for, as I don't want to risk drinking this if they are past their sell by date

OK... not that I would drink it, but I do tend to wash the brush and stick the tip of my brush in my mouth to bring the brush bristles together.

Is it a future or past date? Could it be the date the paint was manufactured possibly?

I do the paint-brush licking thing too, it helps a lot to get it to come to a point and to keep the brush and painting optimum.

Cadmium yellow and titanium white, yummy!

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I would think titanium would be safe; there are several Ti clips in my body right now.

There was an interesting post on Marike Reimer's site (Destroyer Minis) where she gave up brush licking due to a few weird head growths. You may wish to keep that in mind prior to brush licking.

I have paints dating back to 2002 that I still use. I just dump a few drops of water in the pot every time I use them.

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Depends on the generation in my experience. I have pots from the early 90s that are still good and I have some that are just a couple years old and are gloppy and not good for anything but drybrushing.

Brushlicking - I never understood that. It just seems icky and I can't imagine that saliva is good for the paint. I use the crease on the palm of my hand - the heart line/love line, under the pinky.

Would that be bottom inside the pot or on the exterior?

I doubt they are related in any way to shelf life, but I don't have the newer pots. I do still have some of the original paint in MK1 (per Stephane) bottles in use and there is nothing meaningful on the bottom of the pots.

Tube paint manufacturers occaisionally stamp the ends of the tubes with the color code, but I've never come across dating on paint. Given that paint is supposed to last a very long time, dates would be a bit pointless. It's more likely that the numbers are some sort of lot#.

Brushlicking is pretty low on the list of things that will harm you while pursuing "The Hobby"(tm). I'm thinking fumes from Turp/white spirits/primers, inhaling polystyrene dust, and poor painting posture will get you long before brushlicking.

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Date on the bottom of the new era pots of paint on the outside.

How well are these new pots anyway? They seem much tighter than the old ones. I have paints in the old style high plastic bottles from 1990's that are still perfectly fine. However the recent hard plastic top ones seem to dry out much too quick.

The new ones withslightly rubbery plastic ones are smaller bottles, but do they last longer?

Oh, and the idea (theory) of brush licking is to use the slavia to keep the bristles bonded together as it dries out. Any other method tends to remove the water from the bristles so they don't stick together and dry sprayed out.

Same here. It all depends on which generation you have. The old flip tops are really good for preserving paint, but some of the ones with screw on lids aren't very paint friendly.

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

I wonder whether adopting the process of standing paints on their head will alleviate the dry paint issue?

It should provide the seal that will stop the paint drying out? That is if you have enough paint in the pot to cover the screw part of the pot

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Elemental Ti yes, but the paint pigment is likely the oxide (TiO2) which is not so nice. Also present in many toothpastes by the way. (Kids, don't swallow!) Of course the worst way to get it in your body is inhaling the powder which should be rather rare in any paste/paint application.

Think problem with the flip tops aswell is as the paint get lower I dip the brush right in usally putting to much paint on the brush, then i normally wipe the brush head on the side of the pot to get rid ogf the excess..... i.e leaving paint on the rim and as this builds up the things dont seal properly.... I have a lot of the old screw top ones that are still ok and must be years old and still ok to use, where as i purchased a load of new paints last year that are flip tops and some have gone gooey already!


Regards epic

Think problem with the flip tops aswell is as the paint get lower I dip the brush right in usally putting to much paint on the brush, then i normally wipe the brush head on the side of the pot to get rid ogf the excess..... i.e leaving paint on the rim and as this builds up the things dont seal properly.... I have a lot of the old screw top ones that are still ok and must be years old and still ok to use, where as i purchased a load of new paints last year that are flip tops and some have gone gooey already!


Regards epic

Years ago, when Citadel first released their paint sets, they had an article on how to use the pots properly.

Basically, you want to dip your brush into the reservoir in the cap where you can see what you are doing:


One of the other glorious features of flip-tops, is that they are easy to clean. As seen with this pot of 1980's Ghoul Grey, you take a knife and run it under the dried paint in the rim. The gunk in the rim lifts out easily and your pot is good as new:

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