About paint but not painting

Well-- Vice Grips are what I use on the tough ones....you can get it tight and lock it so you can concentrate on twisting it off....but a disclaimer for the really small bottles of Testors paint-- I did this to a white bottle and tightened it enough that I crushed the bottle....got glass all in my paint ...so now I am a bit more careful...

Those are the ones that lock, right, Mike? I'll have to have a looksee. Right now both are upside down in a pan on water with brush cleaner dropped into the gap. Anyone else have ideas??

Here are the methods that I have used:

1.) Vice grip (leather belt)
2.) Turn bottle upside down and put thinner in the gap between cap and bottle
3.) Insert a small screwdriver and try to twist/loosen the cap away from the bottle.

I use a leatherman's tool to either twist off the cap or tap the lid and then twist off. I have also put the bottles in hot water and let them sit for about 15 minutes.

Very hot water ..... and vice grips.
Sometimes 2 vice grips, one for the bottle, one for the lid.

I usually take them to the firehouse and use the jaws of life on them.

The old addage - "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" applies in this case.

I used to just wipe down the threads on the bottle - but that doesn't quite do it. Now I wipe out the threads on the inside of the cap. You lose more paint with each wipe down, but it keeps you from losing skin when the blisters break ! Ow.

I set the bottle cap side down in a shallow bowl filled with lacquer thinner. After an hour ar so they usually open with less effort.

This is the best tool made for that and has been around for many years.



It is $5.95 from Micro-Mark

If it's really tight then I hold the bottle with some Sears Robo-Grip pliers along with it.



Mike

I use giant pliars, but Bossman got the best advice.

I use a bench vise just to hold the bottle and then use pliers or a vice grip. that requires me to go out to the garage, for the first try I'll use my leatherman crunch (TM) with its vice grip.

Hammers work; and of course Red Green says any tool can be a hammer, so all the above methods would seem to work fine!

Try putting a skin of vaseline on the threads before you close the bottles; the paint won't stick to it.

Enjoy!
Bruce

Thanks guys!! Chronic "stickers" get a piece of plastic wrap between lid and bottle. These two were find before Xmas but the cat snuck into my room at my sister's while I was home I guess 'cause both were laying down and the flesh had leaked some. I cleaned them before I closed them but... The clear flat opened this morning. I scraped the dried paint loosed by the brush cleaner and water treatment out and them repeated over night. It opened just before I had to leave to make class on time so I put plastic wrap between the pieces and closed it enough to protect it. I'll have to work on it tonight. The flesh is still stuck. I'll have to try some of these out.

Metallics seem to be the worse for me. I had a bottle of steel that was welded shut and I tried all of the above ideas. This was a new bottle from a hobby shop that stored the paint upside down, so me and my buddy thought of a Darwin award idea and used a blowtorch to heat up the lid. The explosion would of not been as dramatic if I had poked a hole in the lid before heating it. Pressure built up and we had to neatest fireball with four big pieces of glass in it. Fortunatly we were not holding it and our jeans prevented the glass from cutting us. We also were smart enough to do it outside in the driveway so it was easy to put the fire out. Now if I can't open the bottle, I just poke a hole in the lid and pour the paint into a new bottle. That is why I keep and wash out old paint bottles and lids. Prevents me from getting any more creative "ideas" that might cause bodily harm and property damage.

Scott

I too had a problem with a bottle of steel but it was the easiest of the five after flat black to open. I found 5 totally stuck, all testors
2 Enamel
Flat Black
Steel
Acryl MM
Clear Gloss
Clear Flat
Fleash Tone-Shadow Tint
They opened in this order-
Flat Black-With Pliers
Steel-Scrape, drop of thinner, pliers
Clear Gloss- Brush cleaner, soak over night, pliers
Clear Flat-Brush cleaner, soak over night,scrape, repeat Sun-Thurs, pliers (this is the one I needed to dip a part Sun Night when I made my little discovery.)
Flesh-Shadow-Open Darn you!! Has recieved the above treatment but has not surrendered.

I have a 20 year old bottle of Testors Steel that I haven't opened in 19 years. Why I keep it, I don't know. It just sits there, while I realize the futility of trying to open it. I think this type of paint has a self-welding feature. Perhaps one of these days I'll get obsessed with the idea of trying to open it

DJ

I have a few of those type of bottles. One is a bottle of Mattel Flesh and another is a bottle of Aurora navy blue. My brother bought them in the 60's and I still have them. Why? I don't know but the paint is still good, that is because the lids are welded shut from age.

A small sledge will open any of them but that is on the drastic side.

You're trying about everything that works. Prevention is the main thing.
First, if the paint leaked out when it tipped over, the lid was definitely too loose, and if it doesn't get welded shut, it's going to dry up the paint over time anyway.

Someone else mentioned the main thing. Wipe the threads on the jar, and wipe the threads in the lid and where the top edge of the jar hits the gasket in the lid. Then make sure the lid is closed tightly. If it can't leak out, it can't seal the lid shut after that. Yeah, it wastes a little paint each time you do it, but you won't waste the whole jar either.

Good luck getting those open. Once you do get them open, clean the treads on the jar and the lid before you close it back up.

edit: Try some laquer thinner in the lip of the one that's still stuck. That's the strongest of the "normal" solvents for paint.

Eric

Have you seen the TV commercials selling the Sears Craftsman strap wrenches? The small wrench is the perfect size for small paint bottles but don't tell the wife, she'll put it in her kitchen and you'll never see it again.

scottrc
I've got a bottle of Tester's silver paint marked 15 cents. Must have bought it in about 1970. Do you remember when the price rose to a whopping 19 cents and we didn't know how we were going to afford to buy paint anymore?

Rich

Scott, I found your way of getting a lid loose very funny. Reminds me of a person I know who used his wife's vacuum cleaner to remove the last bit of gasoline from the gas tank. Only the vacuum was hurt. Talk about a Darwin moment.