Mini Vortex paint Mixer - Best Paint Mixer or Shaker for Miniatures & Wargames Models

Hi guys, Fauxhammer here and welcome to my first ever YouTube video. I know that a lot of people

out there have been really interested in finding the best device for mixing and shaping their

different bottles of paint. Now I've been doing a lot of paint brand reviews recently and this

This has really encouraged me to find a way of saving both time and my arm when shaking

the different bottles. These army painter paints for example have been quite medium heavy so when you're trying

to get through a review and shaking lots of them it really hurts your arms

There are DIY options out there such as a jigsaw which is attached to a G-clamp which essentially

shakes the bottle up and down really really fast and if you've got an agitator then this

will mix your paints for you. Now I've been using that same DIY method for quite a while

but I have been eager to treat myself to something a little bit more professional that gets the

job done better. Now initially I looked online for something that would shake these bottles

and rest my arms not have to hold on to a jigsaw and there are a number of options out there

there's the robot paint shaker which essentially lets you strap the paint to

it you can get a battery powered version or a mains powered version what this

will do is this will you just turn it on and it shakes your paint for you now

this device here is very interesting this is actually a mini vortex mixer

it's not made for paint per se it's actually made as lab equipment and the

point is you get a test tube and this test tube you place in the top and it'll actually mix the

contents of that test tube. It's really simple to operate. The device just sits on the desk and all

you do is you put a test tube in the top and then the device inside will spin at 3000 RPM causing

the fluid inside to mix and I'll show an example of this in a few moments. Now before committing

to buy this I actually had a look online for some alternatives and here we have what is essentially

a budget nail polish shaker that you obviously use for nail polish and the paint sits in the top

there like this Vallejo does and it shapes it side to side. That's pretty good, it does the job

you just turn it on and it shakes the paint. There is an alternative version that's made specifically

four miniature paints this is the robot paint shaker and from what I understand it is essentially

a more robust version of the same thing the robot paint shaker comes in both battery and mains

powered version and the batteries doesn't shake it quite as well and the mains powered version

will shake it a lot more vigorously so that's really the version you want to go for if there's

there's a mains adapter available in your country. This budget version however

was less than half the price of the robot here, and it actually comes with both mains and battery built in

The problem with it however, is that as soon as I received it

put some batteries in, I know these batteries work because they were recently charged

they're EniLoop batteries, really good batteries, just been in charge, they work in my children's toys without a problem

and that didn turn on it simply didn work So you do get what you paying for with these things which is why I thought okay I step up to a robot paint shaker but in the UK they not available so then I had a look

online for what else was available and here we have the mains powered and the mains adapters

are available in a variety of countries but the mains powered vortex mixer so the vortex

Vortex Mixers themselves actually rotate the paint at incredibly rapid speed. So unlike shaking it up and down, which really does help if you've got an agitator, what

I'm going to go through now will show you how the Vortex Mixer works

So this is thinned Drakenoff Nightshade and to get it work you just press it down, give

it a second because you need to find the right space, but press it down on the top and then

device will force the paint to rotate and as you can see as you press it down the paint inside is

rotated very rapidly and this helps to loosen up any clogged pigment and the paint itself will shoot

up the side mixing with the medium and give you a nice consistent mix. So as you press the paint

down onto the pressure pad that will actually cause the device inside to quickly shape the

paint around the inside of the bottle. This should loosen up any loose pigment. Another thing to do

I like to flip them upside down for some of the more resistant things which will shoot the medium

up into the pigment that's settled at the bottom and clean it out. So let's have a look at what we

can do with an actual paint where the medium and the pigment have clearly separated. So here we have

Spore Crusher Brass. As you can see here there's some clear separation between the medium and the

pigment so the medium itself is in the middle, it's got a slightly orange hue, the pigment itself

is at the bottom and that's your silvery gold colour. And what we need to do is mix these back

together so that we've got a nice consistent paint. What I'm going to go through here is I'm just going

to before I've mixed it I haven't used this in a year so I'm going to squeeze out a couple of drops

on this paper to the side. And as you can see it's mainly colorized medium and that's what we've got

So we will get that a bit better with a bit of a shake. It's got an agitator

inside. The agitator itself should help to mix the pigment back with the medium

and this is how you would normally shape the paint or what things like the paint shakers would do for you. So let's have a look how this is mixed

Slight improvement, it's a bit thicker but we've still got mainly an orangey colour. So

let's try it out on the vortex mixer. So as I said just press it to the vortex mixer. There is

a pressure pad in there you've got to make sure you hit it it's a little bit sensitive

but here we are and it's shaking it. Now you can just about see around the center line where the

agitator is actually running around the center. So that line there is the agitator itself being

run around the inside of the bottle several times. Now I was hoping that this would show

a change in color on the outside. The only thing with these dropper bottles is the paint pigment

and the medium will actually dye the bottle on the inside anyway

So I'm confident here through experience using it that the paint inside is mixing consistently but we not seeing on the outside A bit disappointing I always like to see that change It there slightly but unfortunately we can see it

Now I like to put them upside down as well because when you've got them upside down the actual medium

itself gets shot up to the opposite side of the bottle so it spins up so if you've got any really

stubborn pigment down at the base of the bottle then that shooting the liquid

medium up there will will clear that out for you. So here we go here's the drop

and as you can see that is a perfectly mixed paint that is exactly what Skull

Crusher brush should look like perfect. So here is some Balthazar gold that I

mixed up as well, gave it a bit of a shake and again we've got another

perfectly mixed paint. So this is great for Citadel, I've moved my Citadel into

dropper bottles, it works with all kinds of dropper bottles, we've got Darkstar here

these are another really great metallic paint, they don't settle as much but it's

good, we've got some scale colour unfortunately, this is quite well mixed

so it doesn't show it too well. We've also here got the primer again from Army Painter

Again, quite a thick paint with it being primer, just a quick touch on there will keep it nice and clean

So here's a good example. This is some Tamiya Chrome Silver X11, and this hasn't actually been opened for over 10 years

As you can see there, it's pretty much medium on top, all the pigments at the bottom, and the pigment itself has actually turned quite chunky and thick

So this is the sort of paint that would be really great to easily recover

Obviously it's still quite fluid, if it wasn't fluid I'd probably get some extra medium in there and get a Dremel with a wire brush

But what we'll do, we'll just mix it up on the Vortex Mixer and we'll see how this looks after the mix

So here we are after the mix and as we can see, no longer medium sat on top, it's almost perfectly mixed

It could probably do with a little bit more time, but as you should be able to see here in just a second, the actual consistency of the paint in the medium is a lot thinner

So now it operates more like a consistent paint. Here we are using it on P3's gold

As you can see, there's quite clear separation there between the medium and the pigment itself

So what I'm going to do, I'm going to speed up this video so we can see the difference before and after

So bear with me a second while I stick you on fast forward. So as you can see here as we are mixing it still we now have a perfectly consistent gold all the way up the side of the bottle

So I'm confident now that this paint is mixed and it would have taken a lot longer if we just mixed it back

So a really good example here is a paint that everyone's going to be familiar with or at least the brand

This is Citadel's Rockwell Fletch. Now this is a great example. It's a brand new bottle. It's been sat on my shelf

I think I've got it as part of Warhammer conquest but it's just been lying around

I got my oil in a dropper bottle But this is clearly separated so we got all the pigment at the bottom the medium which is quite clear not really colourised in the middle So let

see what we can do with this by sticking it on the Vortex Mixer

And there you have it

In less than a minute we've now got a perfectly mixed rough-off flush

Now, we haven't opened this before, as you can see it's sealed, so we'll just take a look inside and we have an absolutely perfect mix of it

So this is an absolutely great device to have. Is it a necessity? No, not at all

You can get away with shaking, you can get a cheaper model, but if you've got a lot of paint or you've got some really pigment heavy paint

then this is an absolutely fantastic tool to have in your armory

You'll find them many places online. Some different countries have them under different brands

Now, this one's 4X, but they do actually come as different named models

You'll know if it's the right thing because you'll have a look online and it will essentially look like this

You've got the blue top, you've got the semi-opaque center with the swirls

and then you've got a solid metal grey base. So the mixer itself is weighted on the bottom and is approximately around 5 kilos

The feet underneath are rubber, so I'll show an example in just a second

This helps to absorb any of the vibration that the unit causes

It's generally quite quiet, you will hear it, but nothing any greater than your average hairdryer on medium

So the shaking itself doesn't affect your desk as I was saying

Here for example is a mini stood next to it and as we mix this turbo door colour we can see that the mini itself is unaffected even though it's right next to it

Here for example is a shield mounted to a cork next to wet paint and I'm quite confident that even the cork itself and how light it is it's not going to wobble over and fall into the paint

This really is a great luxury item for any miniature painter to own

No matter what brand you've got, no matter what bottles you've got, just a couple of seconds with your paint on top of the Vortex mixer and you will have perfectly mixed paint every time

So that about wraps up my first ever YouTube video. I'm going to apologise right now for the quality

I have no intention right now of making any kind of YouTube channel

I'm focused on delivering great content and lots of product reviews on Fauxhammer.com

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