Paint help!

Jamie
by Jamie
I was at a local discount store and bought what I thought what was a great buy. 5 gallons of accent base paint NOT tinted. Boy was I wrong! I can't find anyone to tint it. Is there anyway i can salvage it? Add mixed gallons? What can I do? We where hoping for a light color, but everything I'm reading states Accent base is for bright colors. Please help any advice to salvage this would be great.
  6 answers
  • Marion Nesbitt Marion Nesbitt on Jan 26, 2015
    Sounds like something I would do. Maybe if you contact a pro painter, he would have access to the tints via his commercial license. For a fee, he might help you or offer a suggestion.
  • Lori Darling Lori Darling on Jan 26, 2015
    You can mix the paint yourself. Find a paint chip at the store in the color you want. The back usually tells the colors that are added to get that color. The hard part is adding the paint yourself to your 5 gallon can and mixing it to get to your desired color. I'd take out a bit of paint - make it a set amount - 8 ounces (1 cup) and put some in a jar to play with to start. When you are ready to mix the full batch you will want to buy a paint mixing tool for your drill, so you aren't trying to stir it by hand ! Add your colors in small amounts to your 8 oz test jar, mix, and then decide if your color is where you want it. If not, add a little more and mix a little more, each time recording how much you add of each color. It's a tedious process. When you get the color you like, you can figure out how much you will need to add to the 5 gallons based on what you added to your 8 oz test jar. I mix paints myself all the time and haven't had any problems. I buy those small cans of paint that are already colored to use for test mixes. When I figure out what I need, I go get quart cans of the colors and use those for the large mix. Though the mixing machines have all the 'in-between' colors like 'burnt umber', etc, you will have to work with the basic colors you can buy in small amounts. I've also used artist paints to mix colors - they are all acrylic and will mix with the canned acrylic paints. You can do it!
  • Mary Himes Mary Himes on Jan 26, 2015
    I like your positive attitude! YOU can do.
  • Steve Boldery Steve Boldery on Jan 26, 2015
    AS A PRIMITIVE FURNITURE BUILDER, I AM MIXING PAINT A LOT IN ORDER TO ACHIEVE THE COLORS I WANT. IT IS EASY AND FUN.
  • Lori Lori on Jan 26, 2015
    Why won't they mix it for you, is it the size, if so could you get an empty paint can 1 gallon and get that done? I don't know if you need 5 gallons all the same colour but if not, this would leave some for something else.
    • See 1 previous
    • Lori Lori on Jan 26, 2015
      Lori Darling has a pretty good description of what to do. I don't think I would go for a cup though, I'd start with one gallon and measure the coloured paint into it by a half cup at a time maybe, if not dark enough, another half cup. I'd write it down so the next gallon you mix is the same unless you just want to mix up all the rest at once. I don't know anything about artist paint, so I would go with a quart of paint darker than you want. Seems safer to me and easier to measure and mix. Wish I could be more helpful but you are going to be fine as long as you aren't too picky about an exact colour.
  • Aileen Aileen on Apr 02, 2015
    I believe you can buy tints for paint - maybe at a specialty paint store or an art supply store? My grandfather used to mix his own paint colours in the days before millions of paint chips and colour matching. I just did a quick google and came up with this: http://www.metallicmart.com/universal_paint_tints_s/33.htm - and here's another sample on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Mixol-Universal-Tints-Black-20ml/dp/B0036AYXLI/ref=pd_rhf_ee_s_cp_1_P23N?ie=UTF8&refRID=0SKZ2TJSR7T7XM6WCYW2. Maybe one of them will help!