Just wondering if anyone knows the approximate shelf life for unopened Tamiya acrylic paints? Bottled paint.
I use Tamiya NATO colors the most so bought 5 or 6 of each as well as some other colors but I’ve been in a little building slump for the past year so they have just been sitting in a plastic bin for storage underneath my desk.
I have two Tamiya paints that were opened 20 to 25 years ago that are still good paints. I’ve used them (Flat Black & Hull Red) on occasion as recently as this year.
The key in my opinion is to make sure lid seal and jar threads are clean so a proper seal can be made when lid closed.
I don’t return thinned paint to the original paint bottle.
Shelf life is well over 25+ years after opening if you’re careful with keeping lid & threads clean.
I have a bottle of Tamiya XF-2 Flat White that I bought in 1986. I specifically remember buying it because of the girlfriend I was with at the time. Hottest girl I’ve ever been with and she had the nicest a$$ I’ve ever seen in my life. Anyway, that bottle of paint is fully separated, carrier and pigment, but it still stirs up just fine and shoots smooth as silk. So the approximate shelf life of Tamiya Acrylics is 40+ years.
I too have a few bottles of Tamiya acrylic paint I purchased decades ago that’s still good. But, it smells different from the paints I have now, that do seem to dry out a bit quicker than the old stuff
Funny my oldest bottle of tamiya is also Hull red and I too just used it. Mine is probably closer to 12 years olds though
Your point about clean threads is good too. When I was younger and less careful I would get the threads dirty. I have a bottle of IJN grey newer than the hull red but it’s a bit thick, I imagine due to a poor seal at one point
Yeah, I have a handful of Tamiya paints that are 30 years old or more and still good. They are not anything like Model Master Acryl paints that go bad within 5 years.
She dumped your @ss because she found out you were a model geek? 
I’ll be 58 in August, and it still my dirty little secret
No! She used to go to hobby shops with me! She thought it was cool!
Fantastic a$$ and she loved hobby shops, nice try, but you won’t fool me!
How does she look now and where does she live? 
As Armor_Buff says…
Keep lids & threads scrupulously clean.
Make sure they are tight.
The ‘tinted clears’ tend to thicken but take years.
I have large pot Tamiya acrylics that are 36-38 years old, 90% are still good.
When i came back into the hobby 7 or 8 years ago I went and visited my parents attic to retrieve all my mid 80s era models, tools, gear, and yes paint. To my surprise most of my Tamiya paint was still ok and maybe one or two polly S bottles. Testors was mostly bricks by then (keep in mind these were in a cold/hot attic for 20 years). After i opened some of the regular Tamiya paint to use again it seemed they didnt last much longer and got hard… with the exception of one special type… all their clear colors were in great shape and i still use to this day. So for some reason I feel their clear colors (atleast from the 80s) has a longer shelf life than the others.
No worries as long as the lids and inner seals are tightly and cleanly fitted. The only Tamiya paint that I’ve ever had “go bad” was paint in jars that weren’t tightly sealed and which dried out.
New, from the factory and never opened - essentially has no expiration date. Consider how long the paint may have sat racked up on the shelf at the hobby shop. It’ll last just as long on your shelf or paint drawer.
When you open the jars / bottles, be sure to wipe off the screw cap threads and the plastic seal inside the cap (at least around its outer edge). This is really important especially if you just shake the jars to mix them. When you open the jar, paint will run all over the threads in the cap and the jar. Wipe all this off before closing the jar. If you don’t, the built up, dried paint will eventually compromise the air-tight seal and the paint will dry out. (Not to mention how hard it becomes to unscrew the lids. Keep a pair of Channel Lok pliers handy at your bench to help un-screw stuck paint jar lids if this is your M.O.)
Using a battery powered paint stirrer / mixed and draw the paint out using pipettes or medicine droppers will significantly mitigate this problem of paint on the cap threads. Still, take a moment to wipe them off if you do get any paint on the threads.
Never add water or paint thinned with water back into the jars. Tamiya paints are cellulose thinned acrylics - not water-based acrylics. However, Tamiya paints reduced (i.e. “thinned”) with proprietary Tamiya thinners are Ok to add back into the jar and don’t seem to have any effect on shelf life. (This does, of course, effect the thinning ratios later.)
IF you’ve allowed a jar to start to dry out and the paint has become very “thick,” use Tamiya lacquer thinner (“yellow cap” thinner) to thin it back to a usable viscosity. Mix very, very well with something that will reach all the way to the bottom of the jar - don’t just rely on shaking the jar to re-mix. A battery powered paint mixer is the best tool that I’ve found for this. (Re-clean the cap threads on the jar and in the cap before replacing it.)
Once the solids in the paint have started to polymerize and have turned into a semi-solid, rubbery clump in the bottom of the jar, it’s all over. Even if you successfully break the clump up, the paint will never be usable. The acrylic binders have done their thing on a chemical basis, and they’re done.
Finally, save a few of your old and empty Tamiya paint jars. Clean them spotless (hardware store lacquer thinner) and scrape the labels off. The inner seals in the screw caps will come out for cleaning. Avoid scratching or gauging the seal, though.
If you ever need to mix up a large batch of paint - pre-thinned for spraying or some custom color mix - as long as you stick to Tamiya brand paint and thinners and keep it in this clean jar, it’ll have a shelf life that’s nearly as good as a brand-new jar of paint. (I use blank peal-and-stick envelope labels, the kind sold in 8-1/2 x 11 to run through home printers to make new labels for these custom paints. They wrap right around the jars and stick almost as good as the original labels.)
So the take away is Tamiya will last longer then your girlfriend.
Yep. Tamiya is more faithful, too!
And less expensive
And it only costs price of a container of thinners to get rid of it… 
And won’t nag on you if you use other paints.
I have thought about sealing the edges of paint bottles I know I probably will not use again for years. Yes unopened paint and properly cleaned bottle caps and jar openings should mean the paint will live indefinitely. I have a few bottles of paint that they do not make any more. I am thinking about pouring melted wax on the outside of the bottle where it meets the lid. They did this for wine, should work for paint you cannot get any more.