I generally prefer enamels for figure painting, and have recently started building a collection of Revell paints. While I generally enjoy the paint, I have no love for those little tins. Do they know it’s 2026? Anyway, I’m wondering if any of you recant the paint into bottles, and if so, where do you source the bottles?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
When I decided to try to decant a rattle can of paint I got a couple of Tamiya bottles with caps at my local hobby shop … yes, I know I’m lucky and have a real store close by.
I just tried Amazon and using Tamiya paint mixing jar found them there.
Thank you, Dan. I did look at those. Their price is what made seek out less expensive alternatives.
Scale Hobbyist has the Tamiya 10 ML bottles for $1.39 each. Hope this helps.
The silly little tins don’t have lids with threads,
no threads that can get gummed up with paint.
Keeping the lid clean is vitally important to get
a good seal when closing the tin.
I never liked those tinlets. Most of the time it took brute force with a screwdriver to pry up the lid, bending the edge out of shape. And then it crusted around the rim, making a good seal challenging. I switched to acrylics and never looked back…
You can buy those plastic squeeze dropper bottles similar to those used by many acrylic paint lines for cheap off of Amazon. Then you just need to come up with labeling.
I apologize, Mr. Robin. I did not mean to offend your European sensibilities. I did not realize how much you guys love your little tinlets. I didn’t call them silly. You did. My adjective would have been stupid, or archaic, or rediculous.
Now don’t get me wrong, I have issues with bottles, too. I’ve tossed many with frozen on tops, but overall I think they’re the better choice. I do clean the lids before replacing, but that’s kinda tedious. I recently purchased a tin of 39, dark green mat. The lid was jammed on from the factory. I didn’t think I was going to get it off. Now it looks more like a tulip than a paint can lid. I’ve also had to completely remove the teflon(?) coating found on some lids because it rolled up as I tried to press the cap in.
I appreciate your opinions and I’ve very much enjoyed your contributions to the site.
Thank you, and remain well.
Oh yeah. Isn’t it better to describe colors with words as opposed to numbers?
Remember those heavy-grade polythene canisters for 35mm film? I kept about 15 empties from my photography days in the 80’s, and found they had a great hermetic seal when I started mixing my own custom (acrylic) colours for models in the 1990’s.
I found that the fuller they were filled (i.e. almost no air) the longer they lasted, my record was nearly 2 years & just needed a stir. But I’ve never tried decanting tin-enamels into them - I don’t think they’d react with the polythene so in theory it might be worth trying.
Absolutely no need to apologize.
I also have mixed feelings about those tins (Revell, Humbrol and a few other brands).
I have said many foul words about them during the more than 50 years I have used them.
Our experiences with paint tins or jars seem rather similar even if I tend to prefer the tins.
Yes. Easier to remember.
I regularly have to hammer lids back into shape and/or do a thorough cleaning of them.
Great idea, but good luck finding them these days! I still have a few - they were everywhere back then, and handy for all sorts of stuff that needed a container…
For anyone interested, I decided on Pekybio glass bottles, 20mL. 2”(57mm) tall, 1”(27.5mm) in diameter 20/box, with a plastic screw on cap with a seal. I also grabbed a box of agitator balls(100), and 3/4”(18mm) round stick- on labels for the caps. All available on Amazon. Roughly $25usd total.
I hope someone will find this helpful. I’ll let y’all know how it works.
I’m not necessarily defending the use of tins by Humbrol or Revell; to be honest, I just deal with the world as I find it. I realised since I was a kid using Humbrol, just about the only game in town back then (though Airfix were also making their own paints in small bottles) and that, through experience, they soon gummed up and dried out. The same actually happened with the Airfix jars but that may have been my childlike husbandry towards paint in general - ie, at that time none.
These days, being fully aware of the problem, and as I enjoy using enamels still, I simply monitor the tins as I use them; if the paint is beginning to cake-up then I clean it with a paper towel and white spirit. If dried paint has already hardened around the lid, or rim, then I remove it using a small screwdriver as an ad hoc chisel, sometimes softening it first with a cotton bud soaked in white spirit. It’s not difficult to do and only takes a few minutes into your modelling regime. It really is no big deal Chaps, I mean, c’mon; you probably spend time administering to your airbrush and other maintenance aspects of the hobby so what’s the problem with cleaning around the edge of a tin?
One thing I have noticed is that Revell paints dry, generally, much quicker than Humbrol, so be aware.
Both. 
Although the kicker was when scraping off the dried paint round the rim, bits would sometimes fall into what was left of the paint no matter how hard one tried to prevent it.
I tried cutting off a patch of Clingfilm to wedge between the lid & rim to make it hermetic but it never seemed to work, the paint still formed a skin (or dried up completely) which I assumed meant it still wasn’t airtight…or did the paint (and tin design) actually have a deliberately short shelf-life to encourage re-orders, once you’d used enough to have air locked in…? That’s why I said screw it, apart from some essential metallic enamels I could mix all my own acrylic colours and keep them in the 35mm film cartridges, with few exceptions, for longer.
Yes, sure it was labour intensive, and even with my OCD-type zeal, I didn’t always abide by my own procedures, especially when young, but I just learned to live with it. There was always that one day when one would open a tin of say, the cherished Humbrol authentic colours range (I’m still not convinced over that strange Afrika Korps orangey-sand colour) and discover that a skin had formed, like on day old custard; one then had to pierce it with a cocktail stick - dependent on the thickness - stir, and hope that it would survive; of course, it never did, it was the beginning of the end, and this particular schoolboy then had to dispense more of his hard-earned pocket money on bus fares, on a trip to the model shop in my hometown, purchase a replacement, return and begin the whole optimistic process over again.
I am actually much better these days at such paint husbandry, and do look after them a little bit more as described above; a sort of Humbrol ghost haunts me though, with the odd tin amongst my accumulation of paints, decades old, that is encrusted in the way we know so well, yet the paint within is still very usable, covers well, and seems to defy any aging process whatsoever; a sort of Dorian Gray of the paint world (which must be an appropriate metaphor if ever there was one). I mean, this must be very serious paint indeed!
Brian. I think the Ghost of Humbrol Past would be happier in a nice glass jar where he could at least see the world around him.
I’m sure you’re right!
I actually have some very ancient tins yet the contents seem to be still viable; amazing really, but back then of course, the stuff was made in the UK and probably contained all sort of harmful and politically dubious substances, all of which ensured a smooth, opaque coverage and excellent finish(!)
Truly, the past is a different country.