mixing paint

I pick up a handful of the plastic coffee stirrer sticks at McDonald's whenever I can stand to go there.  Use 'em once and throw 'em away, and the price is right!

I like the thin wooden ones from certain coffee shops. If and when I see them I grab a couple. They scrape the bottom of the bottle and mix the paint very well. 

I use a long nail for glass jars and wooden toothpicks for metal tins (like Humbrol paints).

The nail is great, easy to clean and gets into the small groove that most bottles seem to have at the bottom.

I just use the other end of the paint brush and  wipe it off,nothing extra to buy.

Cadet Chuck

I pick up a handful of the plastic coffee stirrer sticks at McDonald's whenever I can stand to go there.  Use 'em once and throw 'em away, and the price is right!

I buy the coffee stirring sticks at the grocery store.  They are about a buck for a hundred.  I don't drink enough coffee at fast foods to keep enough in stock, though I do add those to my stock.  But I go through them fast enough I want to have a good supply in hand.  I prefer the hollow tube ones, which can pick up a little paint for mixing a bit of one color with another, with the old "finger over the top" trick.  Also use that trick for applying decal setting solution using those stirring sticks.

The sticks I am talking about are hollow tubes about 3/32 inch in diameter and about four or five inches long.

Badger makes a battery powered paint mixer, which I have and use regularly, which is absolutely great for mixing paint that has sat for a while on the shelf.  Mixes the stuff up thoroughly and I've found that once I use the Badger mixer on a bottle or tin of paint, unless I let is sit for weeks between uses, all I have to do is give it a good shake since the Badger has already thoroughly mixed it up.

Hope this helps.  The thing really is worth the money and can be had at Micro-Mark.

Bob

I have a badger paint mixer too. If I'm stirring paint after it's been sitting, I use the mixer. If I'm just re-mixing during a session, I use a toothpick.

I use the Badger for jars, and I use a paint shaker for Vallejo paints. Both work great.

After years of stirring, I now also use the (micro mark) paint mixer exclusively.  It mixes paint much more thoroughly than stirring with sticks--- and in a tenth the time.  It also saves paint--- after mixing I can lift the head of the mixer just above the surface of the paint in the jar, turn it on for a second, and have almost all the paint from the mixer returned to the bottle by centrifugal force.  I'm pretty sure I've saved the $10 cost of the mixer in paint alone--- not to mention all the time I don't waste anymore stirring.

Tom 

after mixing I can lift the head of the mixer just above the surface of the paint in the jar, turn it on for a second, and have almost all the paint from the mixer returned to the bottle by centrifugal force.

I'm going to have to try this, carefully. I can see potential disaster.

I just use old pieces of sprue that're lying around

Cadet Chuck

I pick up a handful of the plastic coffee stirrer sticks at McDonald's whenever I can stand to go there.  Use 'em once and throw 'em away, and the price is right!

The old McDonalds "spoon" shaped stirring sticks were the best for that task and made great aircraft gun "blisters" .

That is, until it was revealed on the news that they were being used for drugs and McDonalds changed the design.

Nowadays I'm back to using a spare Testors paint brush plastic handle.

I really like the Tamiya paint stirrer. One of my favorite modelling tools. Also great for spooning small amounts of paint into the airbrush and the small end fits well in the paint cup to stir the paint/thinner mixture.