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Hey gang,

Opinions on kids glass marbles as mixer shakers in plastic dropper bottles?

I've heard people warn against BB's even if they are theoretically stainless, as sometimes they still rust.

I had thought that a glass marble or one of those ceramic blind baking 'beans' might be the go as they are inert and shouldn't colour the paint.

Thoughts or advice please?

I think marbles would be too big, anything kids related probably would be since small parts would be a choking hazard.

Glass beads would probably work. I admit I'm lazy so I use whatever I have available - large chunks of scrap resin, metal base tabs (back when I worked on more metal minis) etc.

Green stuff world sell ball bearings at various sizes to be used in dropper bottles. I recently bought some for this purpose

Assuming the paint is ph neutral, or close to, and the ball remains submerged in the paint, I don’t think you need to worry about corrosion.

Sprue bits here, although I've only used them for GW pots.

In the past I used tiny stainless steel screw nuts for my Vallejo paints. Those paints are a bit on the thicker side and the weight of the metal helps with agitating the paint. Stainless steel ball bearing balls should work too (maybe even better). Stuff like this:

https://www.amazon.com/Paint-Mixing-Balls-Rust-Proof-Stainless/dp/B07ZNXSZLJ/

https://www.amazon.com/Army-Painter-Paint-Mixing-Balls/dp/B07Q23FVYR/

Although I'm not sure about the size of those. I just went for "looks" while googling these. I bought mine in a hardware store where I could compare size and weight, pick a few to try out, and then buy more of the best size.

6mm (I think is the size) glass beads work great.

There's a lot of variable quality in metal ball bearings out there so there's always a potential risk of rust development. If you go for glass you have no potential risk at all

The glass beads are indeed 6mm bb's, I have quite a few of them cheap off Ebay.

I recently bought 6mm glass beads off eBay. I've started using them, but can't really tell yet if they're helping!

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223194654754

I find adding great a mixing ball very useful when thinning citadel paints down and putting them in dropper bottles, you can add some thinner and put the bead in the citadel pot to mix it up for transference and then put to ball in the dropper bottle for shaking before dropping.

mrFickle wrote:
I find adding great a mixing ball very useful when thinning citadel paints down and putting them in dropper bottles, you can add some thinner and put the bead in the citadel pot to mix it up for transference and then put to ball in the dropper bottle for shaking before dropping.

This is pretty much what I do as well.