Can anyone suggest what i can do to keep this from happening
I keep adding alcohol to the inside of the tube and it reliquefies it temporarily. tried adding lacq thinner too but it did little.
Joe
I keep adding alcohol to the inside of the tube and it reliquefies it temporarily. tried adding lacq thinner too but it did little.
Joe
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Use it up quicker. Putty will usually dry up before you can use it all since it is used infrequently and in small quantities. Not much else you can do.
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I feel your pain. I never got more than 2 or 3 uses out of a tube. I started using Squadron Green Stuff putty. It lasted 3 or 4 months once opened before going bad.
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Iāve found Vallejo Plastic Putty has a good shelf life.
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When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.
It canāt be a bad thing when you are not using a lot of putty ! Just like buying a snow blower - if you need it , itās good to have one but even better to have one and not need it .
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The putty solvents do not leach out the sides. The only exit is the cap. Sealing the cap is the only way to prolong the use of the putty once opened. Just a random thought, teflon tape around the threads might help like plumbers use on pipe.
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Certainly the cap design is most likely at faultā¦it wouldnāt surprise me if thatās deliberate, to treble/quadruple sales. Same issue with Superglue.
I can discount user-error. I put a cling-film/wrap buffer under the cap of a Tamiya putty tube with the top so tightly screwed on I needed pliers to open it after around a year of disuse. The entire tube was solid.
I bought a Superglue metal tube with plastic spout which claimed to overcome the same issue with the flexi-toothpaste-type tubes, of premature drying. I always kept it upright after ensuring the glue had travelled back down the spout, wiped the nozzle and screwed the top on tight. Again after a year or so of disuse ā solid.
Someone suggested a while ago to put Superglue in the fridge, I donāt know if that works but maybe trying that with Putty might work?
Otherwise has anyone tried putting putty and/or superglue in a vacuum-sealed box?
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Yes. Thereās a āpiercerā on some brands. Donāt use it. Make as small a pinprick in the foil as you can.
Donāt squeeze the tube. A little tendril will usually ooze out on its own as soon as you unscrew the cap, like a tiny zit in slow motion. If you have a larger opening and squees the tube, usually more comes out than you need, and itās exposed to air. Some gets suckes back into the tube. Thatās not a good thing.
Several years old and still going strong. Mainly full because as mentioned above, it gets used infrequently, more due to my propensity to use CA.
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I donāt agree about a smaller piercing, I wondered the same thing and tried that but it made no difference with both putty and superglue. Mr White Putty may have a formulation thatās more resistant to air (does it take longer to dry than others when applied?), or perhaps it just has a longer screw-thread than others to make it properly hermetic.
Itās a tricky equation. Frequent use = more exposure to air, but possibly more is successfully used before solidification, depending on elapsed timeā¦.? Infrequent use = less exposure to air, so it should last longer than with frequent useā¦? I dunno but suspect itās about the packaging primarily, and secondarily about the formulation.
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What about double or triple bagging it in ziploc bags with as much of the air squeezed out as possible? Weāre probably talking about extending the lifespan rather than seeking eternal lifeā¦
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Chemistry in general, maybe not applicable to this particular case but it might be worth thinking about.
Some glues and sealants have a āuse before dateā on them. They will go solid even if the tube/can/whatever has never been opened. Some chemistries have their own ādoomā contained within them. They will harden or polymerise without access to any outside elements (air, water, uv-light whatever). Access to outside āingredientsā only speeds up the process.
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You could also try using the putty for texturing, like regular armor texture or cast texture.
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Superglue in the fridge definitely extends its shelf life, the downside being straight out of the fridge it is thicker than normal and needs to warm back up
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Cold slows down the chemical processes inside the glue
but it doesnāt stop them.
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If you were going to go that route thereās no need to triple bag. Put it in one zip lock bag, close it most of the way, inject Nitrogen into it, squeeze it out, reinject nitrogen. Seal. It would probably work with any inert gas from your welding rig, or CO2 from your airbrush rig if you use it.
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Youāre not going to stop this from happening. This happens to everybody. Iāve never used a whole tube of putty without some of it going solid in the tube.
You can buy putty in smaller tubes (Tamiya, Mr. Hobby).
Or you can buy different putty. I buy Bondo Glazing and Spot Putty in the tube from the auto parts store. Itās $8 and lasts about 2 years before it hardens up in the tube. I consider $4 a year for an endless supply of putty to be very economical and useful.
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thatās what this is. iāve heard people say before they have the same tube for years. maybe they know something we donāt
Joe
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Whatās the chemistry of the putty that youāre using?
If itās nitrocellulose-based, it will likelythin with Testorās Liquid Cement and reconstitute those types of putties most of the time using that.
Good examples of putties that respond well to being reconstituted like that are Tamiya Basic, MoLak Stucco Putty,etc.
Iām able to use every bit of Tamiya Basic or MoLak Stucco. Twelve year old open tube thatās dried out?
Zero issues, took a testerās liquid cement half full broke up entire tube of dried Molak Stucco putty and mix it up so that itās a thin putty.
You donāt have to thin it that much, but thatās my preference for doing it. It can be reconstituted with a few drops of liquid cement.
So Iād test and see if a good Liquid Cement thins and reconstituted the old putty.
Or just tossed it out.
Putty is cheap.
However, ai like the Molak Stucco Putty enough to fool with reconstituted etc.
YMMV
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I keep superglue in fridge kept upright in a small jar, it has lasted for years.Putty I keep in the freezer.
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kind of HARD to work with the putty that way- lol
Joe
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