# Forum Home Renovation Painting  DIY  Paint Tinting?

## abrogard

Can we tint paint at home? 
Water base acrylic? 
I went to Bunnings and they said they don't sell any take home tints. 
I asked them if they'd tint some marked down blue paint they had there.  They said no.  Only tint white. 
Just want a little black paint for a once off job. Be lucky if it was two square metres.   Don't want to pay $30 and up for 1 litre. 
Don't want to buy more than 1 litre - usually buy 4 litres to get it at a reasonable price - of black paint because I can't think of what else I could use it for. 
It would be good if I could buy bulk white and get bulk price and decant what I want to use and tint it.  Or get them to tint it for me, which they say they won't do. 
Or tint some other paint I've got lying around, coloured,  that I'll probably not use for the longest time - but, as I say, they won't do that and I can't find any tints. 
Googled a bit of course and found some saying it can't be done, some saying it shouldn't be done and some saying they are enjoying doing it.  With 'universal tints'  they say they've found available where they live. 
And so on. 
Any good ideas here? 
Immediate problem:  get small quantity of black indoor water base acrylic cheap.
Future:  be able to buy bulk and tint as required and/or tint on hand left overs to more acceptable colour.

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## Marc

I have a bottle of black tint. Bought once at a paint shop to correct a green colour that was too light.

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## InsaneAsylum

I bought vivid white and realised it was so white that it burned your eye balls. unfortunately i threw out the receipt but I went back to Bunnings and they gave me the appropriate tint to tint vivid white into natural white but said they'd charge me $10 and they wouldn't take responsibility for the colour as i'd already used an unknown amount. I was happy to accept this as it was better than binning a near new 4L can and it turned out alright.

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## abrogard

Yep. You can get it, can't you, sometimes.  Bunnings stops me dead but Mitre10 just sold me two 'Y's ' (?) of black tint for $5 which I've got at home here to see how it goes. 
I'll see how I go.  I told her I'd be using only about half a pint of paint - 500ml maybe - but she still reckoned she couldn't guess how much tint I'd need.  I would have thought the smallest amount of black would do the job.  It always did when I was kid with my painting, I remember - every colour mix I tried always turned out black. 
I'll see how this goes.  Very interesting.

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## Marc

Use very little, like a spoon full at the time and mix well.

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## abrogard

Turned out fine.  Had to use all 2 'y's ' to get a very dark navy blue and that's good enough.  They are just small speaker cabinets about 250 x 250 and I would have done them in a lighter colour but the speakers they've been built to house are out of a car and have black surrounds and black grillwork - I couldn't see them fitting well with anything else. 
Did a lousy job of painting though.  I can't get the brushstrokes out of water based acrylic. What's the key to that?   I see in our house, too, where professionals have painted the doors and such there's brush strokes easily seen.

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## Spottiswoode

Brings you back to why can't they sell smaller quantities of paint at a reasonable price. Surely it costs similar to make, transport, store. Why then does it cost 4x as much per litre for 1/4 the quantity. So much paint is wasted because it is almost cheaper to by 2x 4l tins if you need 6l etc.

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## r3nov8or

How much fluid is a "Y", out of interest?

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## Blocker

> Turned out fine.  Had to use all 2 'y's ' to get a very dark navy blue and that's good enough.  They are just small speaker cabinets about 250 x 250 and I would have done them in a lighter colour but the speakers they've been built to house are out of a car and have black surrounds and black grillwork - I couldn't see them fitting well with anything else. 
> Did a lousy job of painting though.  I can't get the brushstrokes out of water based acrylic. What's the key to that?   I see in our house, too, where professionals have painted the doors and such there's brush strokes easily seen.

  No amount of black tint will make white paint black..best will be dark grey...also over-tinting will stop the paint from curing properly.
Easiest way is to have bought a 100ml or 250ml can of black enamel for around $10 -$15..or a sample pot of black wall paint for about $9-$10.
Regards,
Blocker.

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## David.Elliott

Water Based acrylic "enamel" is pretty much crap whichever you buy...I got away with it as the internal doors have the pressed "wood grain" effect. So the brushstrokes are disguised.. 
The other thing is it doesn't ever seem to "dry". I have some french doors that still stick after 2 years...

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## abrogard

Yep.  I hope I didn't over tint.  It seems to have dried in the last couple of hours but whether it will complete the process and dry hard I don't know.  I'll see. 
This is not enamel, I think.  It is Taubman's 'Easy Coat' semi gloss.  Water based acrylic. That's not an enamel?  Or it is?  I am confused by the whole paint thing. 
Generally I prefer oil based and that's what I use on all my metalwork - trailers and whatever. 
But I've slapped water base acrylic on the house outside and inside...  wife much prefers it because she's phobic about paint smell. 
The not achieving black thing:  it didn't much matter.  Just dark enough so's the speakers would blend in.  I'm pretty happy with what's happened here now. On drying the dark navy blue seems to have blackened somewhat.  Good enough.

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## Tools

Could have bought a can of black spray from the $2 shop and you wouldn't have the brush stroke issue. 
Tools

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## abrogard

Are you fair dink?  I never buy spray cans because it is more than $10 for 100 ml or some such.  Fantastically expensive.  Are you telling me they sell spraycans of useful paint at those shops?  We have a new Cheap as Chips opening tomorrow or something...  I'll be checking it out....

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## phild01

Don't use $2 cans, paint comes off if wiped with turps, but bunnings have reasonably priced spray. A spray would be my choice.  White Knight Squirts 310g Gloss Black Spray Paint | Bunnings Warehouse

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## abrogard

I see what  you mean.  That Gloss Black is $7.45 so that'd be something like $20/litre.  That'd be comparable with tinned paint. Might even beat it.  Too late now for that job but in the future I'll look in that direction.  What about this Spring paint they sell? Enormously cheap.  Salesman sold me some Spring undercoat in Bunnings the other week, said it would be fine.

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## chalkyt

It involves a bit of playing around, but if you have some old paint of the right colours laying about, then a mix of a red, blue and yellow will make a dark "mud"... just like when you were a kid. Depending on the particular colours you can get it quite dark but with a bit of a shift towards purple or orange or green depending on which colour(s) is dominant. But, if you try to mix it into white you will generally end up with a grey of some kind or other. My experience is that a friendly smaller hardware place (like Mitre 10) will generally sell you a small amount of appropriate tint(s) to do a job like yours. But as others have suggested you can buy smallish amounts of black for things like fireplaces etc.

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## abrogard

Thanks for that.  I would be happy with grey. I think it has potential. Grey power, you know.. 
How would  you paint a steel firebox to protect it from rust? 
Best clues I've got so far is black lead or something like that.

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## chalkyt

Auto supply places, and even Mitre10 and the Big Green Shed sell engine paint which withstands high temperatures. Worth a look?

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## abrogard

Tried it.  Just burned away.  Engines don't get that hot, it seems.   
I might not have tried exhaust pipe paint though, I'm not sure.  I'll check that.   
The last lot of high temp auto paint I got required me to run the car for x minutes and then rest for y and then run again for z - that kind of thing.   
In order to properly process the paint so's it'd work well. 
Bit hard to match that procedure on a woodfired backyard firebox.  But I tried.  Didn't work. 
No problem.  Sooner or later.  Going to put firebrick inside it, too, when I get round to it.  That'll cool it down a bit.

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## chalkyt

Might kill two birds with one stone, but the people who sell slow combustion fireplaces usually also sell black paint for touching up, painting flues etc. As I recall our fireplace flue came with a spray can that was good for up to something like 650 degrees. Hi-temp, Stove Bright etc seem to fall into this category.

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## abrogard

That's a good clue, chalky, thanks.

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