I don’t know about you, but I am getting tired of shaking those little bottles of paint. I know, I could open the bottle and stir with a stick, but that is no fun either. So I looked on youtube and I found a solution.
All you need is a jig saw and a small clamp. The clamp will be inserted into the saw’s chuck.
You will need a jig saw with a chuck that uses a screw to keep the blade in place.
The handle on the clamp was too thick to fit into the chuck, so I ground down the handle.
Here is all you need to do. Insert the clamp into the saw’s chuck, adjust the saw to a slow speed, tighten a bottle of paint into the clamp’s jaws and turn on the saw. I put the saw into a bucket just in case the bottle flys out of the clamp. Next time I am at HL I’ll buy a Velcro strap to keep the bottle from flying out of the clamp.
Looks good until you get just one time a paint bottle goes “zing” out of the clamps and make a mess of things, or even a hole in the wall. Using a jigsaw contraption is a recipe for disaster. That’s just my opinion.
Nope, not for me. I’d rather stir and shake my own paint bottles than risk breaking a paint bottle or worst.
The possibility of a bottle going sideways would prevent me from even trying that setup, hope it works for you. I’ve had too many of those friction clamps go loose on woodworking projects to trust them.
Some years ago I bought a small battery powered handheld mixer to do the same job, but I’ve never used it. Cute idea, but a minute with a toothpick works well and requires no cleanup. Good luck with your “high performance” mixer and Happy Holidays!
I understand both of your concerns. I run the saw at its slowest speed and I hold the clamp in a bucket. The reason that I made this shaker is because I could never get Testors’ Aluminum paint to properly mix. The paint always had those odd looking black streaks in it.
That’s the one I bought, Learmech. Once I had it I realized that every time I used it, I would have to clean the stirrer in the appropriate thinner, being careful not to remove it while it was still running. Factoring in my ability to make messes, I could easily imagine paint splatters all over me, the bench, the project and the cat.
Sounds as if you’re capable of avoiding all that; it looks like a good tool in the right hands.
Tomorrow I am going to Hobby Lobby to look for a Velcro strap. I can use that to strap the bottle to the clamp to prevent the bottle from bouncing off the wall before it hits me in the eye.[blkeye]
I know there are a lot of people who love to come up with solutions to all kinds of problems and sre very good at it,but for me its just overkill,just give me the butt end of my paintbrush.
I wasted many hours trying to come up with the perfect shaker. I came up with an attachment for my dremmel and I could spin the bottles. It worked pretty good but I realized it was destined for a paint spill I did not care to clean up. Plus it actually took more effort and time to walk across the room and use it then just sitting and stirring the paint with a Tamiya paint stirrer and I’m lazy so I just remain seated and stir now. Good luck with that and I hope you remain free of broken paint bottle spills.
This is not “diy” but I bought one on ebay years ago for about usd 25 and I love it. It’s particularly good for Vallejo-sized bottless. Their bottoms fit perfectly into the black holder.
I used to use a MicroMark stirrer mentioned above, until the cheap and crude switch wore out. I kept the stirring bit, and threw out the rest. Now I just chuck that stirring bit in a Dremel and run it at the slowest speed, and it works great. To clean it, I just spin it in a small bottle of appropriate solvent.
I saw a video on youtube yesterday a guy used one of those micro mark stirrers for stirring his Tamiya paint. He put the card board roller from toilet paper around his bottle first so if he pulled it out too soon, no mess. Thought it was an interesting idea for anyone interested.
