At the moment I'm looking for anything that makes the hobby easier. And so I followed one of the newer trends among wargamers: the vortex mixer. Everyone seems to have now such a device. Except me. I did not read anything negative about it, so I got one too.
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These vortex mixers were supposedly made for chemical laboratories to mix the contents of test tubes. Another popular use seems to be in tattoo studios, where they probably stir the color bottles with these machines. But I don't really know, not my world. Anyway, the wargaming community seemed to have discovered these gadgets two or three years ago in order to bring their chronically dried-out paint bottles into a usable state.
Which is a bit funny, because many miniature painters lamented for years that the available colors were too thin and not pigmented enough. That is the reason why the color ranges that offer strongly pigmented colors have received great popularity recently. Now the same people need machines to stir their rather thick paints. Am I the only one who can see the Irony?
The 'Problem'
Nowadays, acrylic paints very often come in dripper bottles and when it comes to stirring them it is nearly impossible. That's why we all know the annoying and somewhat strenuous process of intensive shaking the bottles. Someone on the net seriously reported that he had trembling muscles from shaking the colors and that he wasn't able to draw a straight line afterwards. Well, I think that's exaggerated. But the shaking is a bit burdensome as we can see in this video from Geek Gaming Scenics. It even became a kind of reflex for me: as soon as I'm in a hardware store and take a can off paint of a shelf, I start shaking it slowly without even thinking about it.
The mixer
The handling of the vortex mixer is very easy: you press the paint bottle into the recess on the soft rubber top and so activate a switch that turns the device on. The machine starts to shake and you hold the bottle against it for a while. The vibration creates a vortex in the liquid that stirs the paint. (If you use it with a glass container you can see it.) As soon as you let go the device stops.
The results depend very much on the condition of the paint and the length of time you hold it to the mixer. After some tries I can say that shaking the top of a color bottle (like shown above) makes more sense than placing it with the bottom onto the machine. Paint is always taken from the top of a container and that's the place where the medium separates from the color. So it is better to press the top of the paint bottle onto the device to get the best results.
The whole thing hums audibly, but you will not wake up your neighbors. One thing is really annoying : the sticky soft rubber on the top collects dust very quick and you can't really clean it.
Mine came for under 30 Euros. There are mixers that cost about 100 (and more) but I don't believe that they will be that much better for this purpose. Except the really professional machines of course. But at the moment I can't tell.
To complete my reflections I just made another test with a bottle of "Barbarian Flesh" (Army Painter) that I haven't used for months:
- First a drop from the bottle without any shaking: Only clear paint medium, no color at all.
- 10 Seconds on the machine: Color, but very thin.
- Another 10 seconds : Usable color.
Twenty seconds and a good result, that's OK for me.
Would I buy it again?
Yes. I could live without it, but it really helps.
And for the people who don't know what the above title means : Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora) (Wikipedia) Did anyone say 'Bettlejuice'? (Youtube)
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