[ANDYA]

My 70 GTO was painted (verdoro green) 24 years ago. At the time the painter gave me the left over paint, an almost full qrt can and a half full pint can. The paint is PPG DBU. I have had this paint stored in my basement all these years. This past summer I purchased a new hood tach and decided to open the paint to see its condition. A friend of mine who is a retired body man was with me when I opened the pint can. We were shocked to see that the paint still looked good. He mixed up a small batch with reducer and shot a test piece. It matched the car pretty good so he shot the tach with 3 coats, waited awhile and then 3 coats of clear. After hand polishing the tach matched the car almost perfect. Recently I combined both cans which were rusty into a new can. My question is how would you continue to store this paint to extent its life even longer? I thought about putting it in the refrigerator to slow down evaporation. The endura nose has some cracks and I would like to use this paint to shot the entire nose. Also, I have 2 qrt cans of 10 year old DBC in crystal turquoise, so same question.

[Stuart]

I think the main thing is to limit its exposure to air. There's a product called Bloxygen that house painters and woodworkers use, it's a gas that you put in the can before sealing it up. However, it's basically just argon gas, so if you have a welder you could use a little gas from that tank to displace the air in the can before closing it.

[mrennie]

I believe the activators have a much shorter shelf life than the actual paints do, and this is mainly due to oxidation from access to air. Some activators are listed as 6 months shelf life after opening, while many paints & primers I have seen are 18-24 months after opening.

Having said that, I store all my unused paints & activators in a crawl space where it stays 55-60F most of the year and have had nothing go bad yet. Some of the older primers I had needed a LOT of stirring to get the thick bottom sludge to recombine with the main liquid, but all were OK to spray. I even have some old RM epoxy that is 10 years old which I am still using on brackets and stuff where it isn't critical, and it still does what it should.

Any time I am using a gallon of any product, I buy 4 quart cans and transfer it to them to ensure the cans are as full as possible. Having a quart can almost full has to better than a gallon can that is 3/4 empty and full of air.

This isn't to say it is recommended or "approved", but if you have your paint in a well sealed can that is small enough to minimize airspace, as long as it will stir up OK I would bet that using fresh activator or solvents it will make it usable for some time to come.

EDIT: I should add, that a few of the older products I have used did have some very small particles of binders or solids that if not filtered, would definitely show up in the final product as a nib. I have an older can of satin black single stage that is doing this and I use 2 paints strainers to ensure these particles are filtered out after mixing with reducer and activator.

The main thing is to do a test panel first and be sure the product is still acting the way it should.

[MUSLCAH]

I have let over lacquer from 1975 …when I painted my 57 Chevy ( Sierra Gold ) …Haven looked at it since then…lol . Don’t ask me why I still have it….the car is long gone. But back to you question…I’d get a new paint can and lid…after you put your paint in…put a layer of plastic ( like one of those grocery bags) over the can…before you smash the lid on. Also make sure you put a little reducer in the paint can and get ALL the pigment out.

[dhutton]

Full cans and constant temperature works best in my experience.

Don

[dataway]

A few weeks ago I painted my glove box door with the same paint I used on dash 25 years earlier ... matched perfectly and sprayed nice. Acrylic Lacquer.

[ANDYA]

Thanks for the replies. I guess I'll keep on doing what worked all along. Store the paint cans in the basement where the temperature stays constant.

[dataway]

BTW .. mine was stored in the original can, in my shop which is much like a basement, it's 3/4 underground and between 55 and 65 year round.