Wet Palette

I've seen it use in the flesh and have thought of getting one. I often use the same principal with a bit of tissue, but the advantage of the pallette is that it keeps it wet between sessions. I am not sure a sponge wrappe in paper would do the trick. As i understand it just tissue and water in a seale container.

    Thanks Bish, your description is exactly what I believe I seen. I have a re sealable container at my desk, gonna give it a try soon. Thanks again good sir.

Let me know how it goes, haven't decided if i should buy one or make my own. There are youtube vid's on doing it yourself.

    My plan is to use a heavier paper towel, make it wet but not saturated, I think the principal is to help keep the acrylic paint from drying out, like linseed oil in oil paints, so one can brush paint for a longer time as well as mix colors on a as needed situation. I will try to post my experience.

My dad is an amateur painter, using artists' acrylic paints - the sort that you get in tubes, like oil paints.  He has a wet palette, which he made himself from a plastic food box with a lid, a dishwashing sponge, and some greaseproof kitchen paper (or baking paper).  The sponge goes in the box, which is part-filled with water so the top surface of the sponge is damp.  The paper (a single thickness) lies flat on top of the sponge, and the paint goes onto the paper.  This keeps the paint from drying out, but does not thin it so much that it pools or runs (the waxy nature of the paper presumably restricts the amount of water getting through).  It means paint is not wasted and any specially-mixed colours can be used over more than one session.

I use a similar arrangement (but without the paper) to loosen decals from their backing paper prior to placing them on the model, but I haven't tried using it for paint.

Bish

haven't decided if i should buy one or make my own

Look at it this way. A commercially made wet palette will run somewhere from $30.00 and upwards here in Australia.

To make your own, you'd need a $2.00 airtight plastic container from your local dollar store, a kitchen sponge and a bit of baking paper (there's probably a roll of this in the kitchen cupboard/drawer)

It works well with Vallejo and similar paints, but probably not so great with Tamiya/Mr Aqueous Hobby Color (ie. alcohol based acrylics) 

I've kept single drops of Vallejo usable for 7-10 days. After this, you want to be thinking about washing out your sponge and container before it becomes a mould colony. 

   Awesome input THANK YOU,never figured parchment ,( baking), paper as the barrier.

    Side bar Phil-H for some reason I thought you were here in the States....cool.

Thanks Phil and Hutch, i had not thought about the baking paper either.

    Well I watched the You Tube vid, and jumped in.

  I have a 3 color paint container from Ammo by Mig that folds closed. Like the vid said I cut some folded heavy paper towel to a layer approx 3/4 of the bottom tray. Next I cut my parchment, baking, paper to size, placed it on top. Next is kinda tricky as it was an experiment but a simple fix....I added water from the tap over the baking paper until I felt it was well saturated, ACTUALLY I over did the water but evaperation should tease the proper ratio out. Said and done I put a couple drops of Ammo by Mig satin black and went to town. It has been about a week and the paint is still viable. Had to mix it alittle in the pallete however the coverage and opacity remained constent. I think it's a winner. Hope you all have good or better results.

Good to know it worked out, Armornut, thank you for letting us know

  You all are welcome, glad I followed up.

Never heard of baking paper, I assume that must be a form of kitchen parchment ? That's what I have here anyway.

I recently discovered a new paint for me to use on chrome as my black wash like on grilles and such to get rid of the excess chrome in the recesses. It's stynylrez black primer, it sticks quite well to chrome, dry flat, as we know not all paints do. But put out on a plastic pallete it dries very quickly, faster than craft paint. What I do is a drop of paint and a drop of water. Touch the tip of the brush in the water touch that to a paper towel, then touch it to the paint. That seems to be a good viscosity for the wash. Saves on oily mess etc. I'm going to use this on the 57 T Bird hub caps. I already did the grill in oil, yesterday I did the louvers in Stynylrez and like the result . When I get the hub caps done the kit is going away till I finish up the 31 Ford or I'll never finish the 31 lol !

   Yes OMG it is baking paper, parchment if you like, I only knew of waxed paper.....until I asked my wife...never knew she was so smart LOL. Apparently baking paper is porous enough to allow water through. As I mentioned above ya gotta tweak the amount of water, I over filled mine. The good thing is it didn't really cost anything real time and I learned that buying the neastest tool on the market isn't always neccessary.

armornut

   I seen on YouTube some builders using a " wet palette" with acrylic paints.

    I am wondering if this is as simple as a sponge wrapped in a paper towel? Or is there special materials involved?  Thanks for any advice. 

Yes, a wet palette can make working with water-based paints easier.  You can blend them easily, and the biggest advantange is that you can save a batch of paints from one working session to the next.

When I first decided to work with a wet palette, I made my own out of a take-out container, a kitchen sponge, and brown packaging paper for the actual palette.  Here's what it looked like:

I eventually did move up to a commercial product, because the take-out container gradually degraded-the edge of the lid cracked and chipped, for example.  And the sponge started to wear out.  I bought RedGrass Games' product:

https://www.redgrassgames.com/everlasting-wet-palette/everlasting-wet-palette-painter/

It's a definite improvement over my home-made wet palette.  The case is much more durable, it has a proper seal with a gasket, and what was for me the most important detail, this particular model has a small footprint.  So it takes up less space on the bench.

RedGrass' paper is very fine, but sometimes it seems too fine.  It can be rinsed at the end of a project, but it tears easily after long use.  I may switch to using other brands, like Masterson's, or even return to using packaging paper.

To that point, though-don't use paper towels.  Most brands aren't durable enough.  The fibers in the paper will work their way out and into your paint.  The same thing happened with my packaging paper, after it had soaked long enough.  And you want a smoother surface for the paper.

Even kitchen parchment paper has a caution.  Most brands are impregnated with silicone, which is what makes the paper non-stick.  But it also makes it less permeable.  Some painters have noted that they boil it, to make it more permeable.  To me, that was more fuss than it's worth.

So it becomes a balancing act between our Dutchy senses, or buying something that costs more but lasts longer.

    Thanks for your input Baron, valuable info for if or when I upgrade. Knowing me I probably will once I get more comfortable with using it. Not that it id hard just subject matter.

My dad normally replaces the paper after a few days - see the earlier comment about mould growing in the box.  I never thought about using brown paper - pretty similar to baking paper/parchment so, yes - why not?

Hutch6390

My dad normally replaces the paper after a few days - see the earlier comment about mould growing in the box...