Paints and Air Travel

[Mechman08]

I may have some business travel coming up, and I’m thinking instead of spending the evening downtime at the hotel channel surfing or aimlessly scrolling on the phone, I’d try to paint a bit of my backlog.

I’ve got a set of primed plastic in the original force pack box and an Army Painter starter set that I plan to shove into my checked bag.  Any gotcha’s I should know about before flying with paints in the suitcase?

[Daryk]

Unless you can seal them particularly tightly, I'd avoid taking them on a plane.  The changing air pressure could really make a mess.

[Mechman08]

Drat, I was afraid of that.  Had hoped the dropper bottles would be up for it.

In any case, thanks for the warning!  Don’t think I would have liked explaining why I was wearing freshly tie-dyed clothes to work, lol.

[Ghaz]

https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/liquids-aerosols-gels-rule

This should hopefully answer your question, assuming you're in the US.

[Daryk]

It's definitely legal, I'd just be worried about a bottle leaking.

[Mechman08]

After my wife told me I could replace the paints if they leaked, I decided to chance bringing them in my carryon.  Double bagged them in Ziplocks for peace of mind.

Arrived with no problems due to leakage.  Lost a little paint to it kinda bubbling out of the dropper a bit when first opening them back up.  A bummer given the small size of the bottles, but nothing too bad.

[Daryk]

Glad to hear they didn't leak!

[klarg1]

I know this response is very late, but what it's worth: I have traveled with paints many times with no major issues.

Messy things can happen if you open them in flight, but otherwise it seems to work out.