How to clean the bottle after the paint is used up?

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jnhchan
Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 11:44 pm
Location: Australia

How to clean the bottle after the paint is used up?

As we painting our model, there will be many empty paint bottle lying around. It is a good idea to clean them and reuse them again as the bottle is quite expensive. However, anyone have good way to clean them? I found out that it is time consuming and hard to clean them. Therefore, if anyone have any good idea to clean them. Please tell us. It should be useful to many people.
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BlackOpsElf
Posts: 60
Joined: Fri May 18, 2007 2:59 am
Location: Boston
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It really depends on the type of bottle you are using. Is it a bottle with a much thinner neck than base? In that case, it may be harder to get all of the inside edges clean of anything that has dried up and stuck to them.

In my experience, the best way to clean paint bottles is very similar to how you clean glass jars of jam: rinse them out under high pressure water, then fill with soapy water and let them soak for about a day. This should remove most of the gunk. At this point, take a cloth/cue tip/paper towel and wipe away anything that remains.

That's about all the advice I can give without knowing the type of bottle in question. :)
ulnhyrr
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Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2006 7:08 am
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Pour a little bit of lacquer thinner into the bottles, close the cap, and shake it around a bit. This will remove the old dried paint. Then you can dump the thinner and then use soap and water to clean the bottles and they will be ready for reuse.
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yukikaze
Posts: 125
Joined: Thu Jun 15, 2006 7:41 pm
Location: New Mombasa, East-African Protectorite

liberal use of thinners is what you need. although im not sure of what you need empty bottles for, besides like mixing paint. its not like you can get refills like your 7-11 big gulp.
Last edited by yukikaze on Sat Jun 23, 2007 6:52 pm, edited 1 time in total.
jnhchan
Posts: 47
Joined: Sun Apr 30, 2006 11:44 pm
Location: Australia

yukikaze wrote:liberal use of thinners it what you need. although im not sure of what you need empty bottles for, besides like mixing paint. its not like you can get refills like your 7-11 big gulp.
Well, you are right. The empty bottles is used for mixing paint. As in my hometown, it is nearly impossible to buy a empty one. Only way i can get is cleaning the old one. Besides, what a waste to throw away a glass bottle. You pay at least 40% of total cost for that glass bottle
Red Comet
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Joined: Mon Mar 27, 2006 10:52 pm
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I clean my Tamiya Acrylic bottles with hot water and an old toothbrush. It sometimes helps if the acrylic paint is a little bit dried too - it flakes off easier then.
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