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I'm currently doing the mixing balls / agitators thing, but it gets tiring after a few bottles and so I was toying with the idea of getting a paint shaker, but I seem to be a bit stuck. It seems to me that in the UK my options are:

Vortex paint mixer = £100, too expensive.
Robart paint mixer = £38 + £50ish for some electronic thingummy which will let me use a US thing in a UK socket. Too expensive.
Nail polish mixer = £20ish, but apparently will die after any amount of normal use.
Hand-held coffee mixer type = No. Don't fancy this due to losing paint when removing the mixer, plus I've rebottled my Citadel paints, so it won't fit in anyway.
Do the MacGuyer thing and strap it to a reciprocating saw or similar = No, I don't have one!
Stick with the agitators and just get a tired arm.

Has anyone else (UK based) found a suitable product? Bonus points for a link.

Cheers.

There are some cheap £30-40 ish china made vortex mixers appearing on ebay - sometimes under vortex sometimes under nail polish mixer titles. They are no-name brands but might do well as a more affordable if durable option for paint mixing.

The other option is hounding ebay for secondhand good quality science vortex mixers which will be far more durable, but you'll have to get lucky to get one that isn't beat up and ancient and at a good price at the same time.

Thanks. I suspect that they may be the only other options that I hadn't thought about. I will pursue them.

I've not bought one yet but I've my eye on them. I do have one of the side to side shakers for nail varnish and they do work; but they are fiddly to use and from what I can see the vortex mixers achieve far quicker and better results in general. Especially with things like metallic which separate out. The nail polish side to side ones I think work good on paints that are already decently mixed and just need a shake up.

Regarding the us to uk electrical gubbins, there is no way that you need £50 for that. You either need a.simple socket adaptor or a cheap transformer, Either of which should cost about £10

Fair enough Flinty, thanks. I was just going by the website that I found. There aren't many places to buy even that one in the UK.

Get a second user jigsaw, or a new one from Wilkinsons should only be 20 to 30 quid, then buy some steel putty and make a jig to hold the paint pot and thats all.
There even an instructable on it https://www.instructables.com/Paint-Pot-Mixer-Shaker-With-a-Jig-Saw/

The saw if its in stock in store https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-functional-jigsaw-230v-400w/p/0342285

And the steel putty https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/unibond-6-pack-repair-express-power-putty/p/0288817

A typical lab vortex will last anything up to 15-20 years, we have ones in work that look like they pre-date me that are still shaking. You might need to replace the rubber pad after 10 years if you’re unlucky.

Do paints really require the kind power a jigsaw outputs to be shaken properly?

mrFickle wrote:
Do paints really require the kind power a jigsaw outputs to be shaken properly?

A vortex is usually used for liquids less than a millilitre in volume as mixing can be incomplete by manual methods. So possibly? Does it matter? Depends on what you want I presume. I use mixing balls and leave the vortex in work.

Fickle its not so much the power they are after, its having a machine that's setup for fast vibrations to churn the paint and move any agitator (eg glass bead) around inside it.

The jigsaw is just a machine with a back-forward motion for shaking that can be bought pretty cheaply compared to some things like professional vortex mixers (pro ones start around £100).

 Overread wrote:
Fickle its not so much the power they are after, its having a machine that's setup for fast vibrations to churn the paint and move any agitator (eg glass bead) around inside it.

The jigsaw is just a machine with a back-forward motion for shaking that can be bought pretty cheaply compared to some things like professional vortex mixers (pro ones start around £100).

Ok so what’s wrong with your hand? That’s what I’m getting at, I put mixing balls In my paints and mix by hand, would I get better results with a machine and I just don’t realise my paints aren’t mixed as well as they could be?

The machine is faster by far and can shake with increased speed compared to your hand. This might well cut down significantly on shaking time.

If you're painting a lot with varied colours chances are you're shaking your paints a lot anyway so they are likely fairly well mixed and not separated. Others might not paint for weeks or months and the paint settles out. That takes far more shake to get smoothed out again.


A machine achieves a faster level of quality and in badly separated paints a higher level of finish. It also does so without wearing you out.

Jigsaws dont just have one speed, they have a variable trigger so if sqeezed a little then it will move a little.

What about a re purposes sewing machine motor or something like that, they go up and down and much smaller and cheaper, I’d assume, than a jigsaw

mrFickle wrote:
What about a re purposes sewing machine motor or something like that, they go up and down and much smaller and cheaper, I’d assume, than a jigsaw

Sure if you've got one use it. The motion is all the jigsaw is for. Although sowing machines might be harder to adapt for the use, but anything that has a reciprocating motion that can be used to spin/stir/shake the bottle

Cheap ones from China are your best bet

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001278860334.html?spm=2114.12010615.0.0.2e9b3c40ydK9ix&gps-id=pcStoreJustForYou&scm=1007.23125.137358.0&scm_id=1007.23125.137358.0&scm-url=1007.23125.137358.0&pvid=2c219fa0-b663-4cb3-aa6b-482fc0b356b7

I use a Reciprocating Saw.

To set it up, I duct taped a medicine bottle to a blade. The medicine bottle has a screw on cap, I can put anything up to the size of a Vallejo bottle in there.

Works well.

Well, I have that GW paint tray case with the hex slots in it.
It’s maybe 20-24 paints in there?

Anyway, if you flip one upside down on top of another.
You can hold them in both hands and shake 40+ paints in one go.
I just do it at the start of every paint session.
Saves buying anything to do it for me..

Cynista wrote:
Cheap ones from China are your best bet

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001278860334.html?spm=2114.12010615.0.0.2e9b3c40ydK9ix&gps-id=pcStoreJustForYou&scm=1007.23125.137358.0&scm_id=1007.23125.137358.0&scm-url=1007.23125.137358.0&pvid=2c219fa0-b663-4cb3-aa6b-482fc0b356b7

Thanks for this Cynista. Looks perfect, and not too much money either so if it is a fail (which I suspect will not be the case), I'm not breaking the bank. Do you have one?