Being a somewhat lazy modeller I always found it frustrating to have to shake paint. I have bought paint stirrers and while I liked the way they mixed the paint, I more often then not found myself picking up spilled paint from tipping the bottle over or from paint flying off the stirrer after removal. It also required cleaning ( who does this thing?). Recently saw this little item in a Micro-Mark Catalog and figured Id give it a try. Its an AC powered shaker with a hard plastic bottle holder and a rubber strap to keep the bottle secure during shaking. I have tried two different bottle types sofar, Testors Model Master, and AV Model Colors 17 ML droppers. Both sat well in the shaker and didnt fall out when I operated it, with one exception where I had strapped the bottle down by the cover (on purpose, as expected the bottle fell out of the shaker). I experimented with different times of running, and found that a 30 second shake works good enough for all but the MOST seperated paints ( one was so bad that it didnt shake at all, Im guessing it was a couple years old) I found that the paints looked even better than if I had stirred them or shaken them myself, and for the most part Im happy with the purchase.!! If you find yourself aching in the arms... give one a try!

The before photos...

you can see this paint hasnt been stirred in a while...



and after....

I am glad you addressed this. I have been looking at them for a while and wondered if it would be worth my money. You have sold me.

Regards,

Eric

I'm on my second one, the motor gave up on the first one and I missed it enough to get another. I add two .177 pellets to each bottle of paint to help the mixing action and can attest to the fact that it can rescue 40 year old Humbrol paint.

We Cannot get thinks like these in the UK with the cost getting stupid, only the badger 'Milk shake ' type ones.

So I found a lab supply's site that did ex demo push to use, test tube vortexes agitation machines for under £50 and The mother is the size of a small starter motor.

A stainless steel BB ( otherwise it'll rust) and has no problems with totally sported valajo paints.

anyone know where to get a replacement motor? Mine went out after a couple of months of use. Maybe 30 minutes total use(not continuous use though).

Ivan, I've owned mine for about 10 years now, and never had a problem with the motor. If you've only owned it for a couple of months, I'd say contact the customer service department of the retailer you bought it from. Mine came from Micro-Mark, and the rubber strap has broken. I was going to buy a new one and realized I can just make my own out of a strip of rubber from a bicycle tire inner tube. I also use an oversized rubber band for larger bottles (like Alclad primer bottles). The shaker moves a lot slower with these larger bottles, but it still does a great job. I've heard other modelers who say they always stir, and never shake a bottle of paint, because it introduces bubbles-- but using the Robart shaker is the only way to go for thoroughly mixing paints as far as I'm concerned, they have gone up in price a lot, but still worth it.
VR Russ

I too have had no issues at all with my paint shaker, but you might have very good luck (I HOPE) with contacting the manufacturer directly Here....... http://robart.com/pages/contact-us

They are out of IL and I read something about warranty issues on their website as well so this may be a warranty repair/replace.

Let us know how it works out!