CAUTION, Always Stir Your Paints. Hyde Stir Whip Test.

So, we got all kinds of stir sticks right here. I got big wooden stir sticks. These are like five gallallon stir sticks. These are just your traditional stir sticks you typically can get free at your paint stores. I hear they're selling them now at some of the big box stores. So, this is a onegon stir stick. This is a stir stick that I've used for years and years and years. It's a big heavy metal one right here. And it's lasted a long time right here. And you do got to clean it. Uh I simple way I cleaned it was just tossed it into the fire pit and it burned everything off. Don't try that at home. I know somebody's going to get mad at me about that, but um keep that for later. So here's a stir whip from Hyde right here. And this is an interesting little tool that I got. They hide sent me a handful of them and I just thought that's a silly little thing. So, I tossed it aside. My ignorance and um you know, not very smart, very very judgmental to this little tiny thing right here. But it's very important that you stir your paints. And I'll just talk about that, you know, briefly real quick. So, we've got semi-transparent stains. In the semi-transparent stains, they're they're very very liquidy. They're very fine, kind of like water. The pigments will settle down to the bottom of that. Typically what I do with semi-transparent stains, I'll leave a stir stick in the stain and every single time I'll pour some in my bucket. I stir it. But even within your bucket, if you're not using it very fast, you're going to get tint settling in your bucket. When it comes to paints, some of the clays and heavier stuff settles to the bottom. Typically, within a day or two, some of the acrylics will actually rise to the top. They need to be stirred every single day. If you don't stir them, you're going to run into, once again, touch-up issues and probably some bonding issues if it's not stirred properly. Yes, you can take and just shake a can, but shaking is not nearly as effective, and you're going to have to shake it for probably three to four times longer than you would have to stir it with a really good stir stick. There are some products like these metallic grit products. I think this is metallic product and the metallics and stuff, they they will settle over time, too. So, you definitely want to be stirring those. So, what is a good stir stick to use? Once again, you can just use these. I know they're starting to sell them now, but typically most paint stores, they're just free. And, you know, they're effective. They do work, but it's going to take once again probably two to three times longer than a really good stir stick. So, I was sent this stir stick. And the one thing I didn't really realize about this thing I and there's something kind of unusual about this thing and I'll show you just in a moment and I was like, "Aha, that is amazing." So, this is the one I typically use, but the shafts on these two, this one, this is a hide stir whip. This one is the shaft is a lot smaller, so it's going to go into almost all the different drills that you have. Some drills, the chuck is not going to be big enough to handle this one. This one is significantly heavy heavier. It doesn't have any paint on it. Now, once it gets paint on it, it starts to build up on there pretty rapidly. And this thing actually was really, really thick with paint. Um, and until I burned it all off and peeled it all off, but it was extremely heavy. This is very lightweight. But here's one thing that's pretty really really pretty cool, pretty rad about this thing. It's meant to go into a 5gallon bucket. So I don't have to take the lid off of a 5gallon bucket. It will slide right into the hole. Just push right down into the hole. And now it's in your 5gallon bucket. You don't have to take the lid or cut the lid to stir your paint. And then when you're done, you just pull it right out. Here's another thing. It's got these little feet on the bottom and the feet on the bottom will touch the bottom of your can and it's actually going to pick up and bring everything off. This thing is very, very effective when it comes to stirring paint. When I've tested them side by side, putting these two in, I feel like this one stirs the paint a lot faster and is more effective of whipping the paint up right here. Don't want to use this thing on lacquers cuz you'll get bubbles in your lacquers. I'm not sure. I haven't been using them that long. I'm not sure how long this plastic will last until it fatigues or breaks, but it's pretty flexible for, you know, going in and out of these 5gallon buckets. This size right here, you can use it in a onegon and a 5gallon. Very effective. I'll show you what it looks like stirring paint and how effective it is. Once you're done stirring your paint, all you got to do is put it into a 5gallon bucket and just spin it with your drill and it'll clean it really fast. We're kind of accustomed to uh sometimes we're adding bug juice and some additives to our paint. We're leaving them in our buckets and they're sitting there down in the paint. And as the paint works down, then the paint starts to dry on it and that's how the paint eventually gets built up on it. But it just attaches to a drill right here. This is it right here. Simply. And there you go. You can see how it spins right there. I I'll stick it in this 5gallon bucket right here. You'll see how it works. So once you're done stirring your paint, here's the trick. So this thing when you're pulling these things out, you know, it's probably going to flick up and it could flick paint all over the place. That's a possibility um from personal experience. So um there's a couple options. You can just take a rag and set it around it and then pull it out. Or you can take a hand masker that just drops some paper over or plastic over it so it doesn't flick everywhere. Or you can just take the lid off. I can just pop the lid off if this lid has been previously removed. Um you can pop the li lid off. I can remove this from the drill just like this. And then lift the lid over the top. But I'll show you this simple method of just bringing it up and taking it out just like that. So, I got another gallon right here. This gallon's been sitting for quite a while. I'm going to show you get a closeup look of this before I stir it up. And we'll show you what it looks like and how fast this gallon of paint um this one's been sitting for quite a while. And but you're going to get tint um tint float. That's a tint coming up to the top and the clay settling down to the bottom pretty rapidly in some paints. I've even seen some exterior paints within hour within hours get tint float in them. So, it's very important if you've purchased the paint the day before and you're going to be using it the next day prior to using it to stir your paint. Once again, if you don't stir your paint, the number one issue you're going to run into is uh touch-up issues or color difference issues because the tint isn't properly stirred. um some of the clays and some of the the binders and stuff like that aren't stirred in as much, but it's the tint that really isn't evenly distributed throughout the can that is extremely important. So, I'm going to stir this one up and we'll give you a close-up look of what this looks like. So, one of the things I do like about this uh this stir whip from Hyde is the footprint of this thing is a lot smaller. So, if I was to stick this one into say a full gallon of paint, this large one, it could cause the full gallon of paint to overfill. This the footprint is a lot smaller. The shaft is a lot smaller. So, it's not going to cause a full gallon of paint to overfill. But, I'll show you how fast that it's it'll actually mix up this gallon of paint. You want to start at the bottom and then work your way up. Now, that right there is mixed better than the shaker would mix it at the paint store. That's 100% mixed. You're not going to get any uh color differences, variances, or any type of adhesion issues with this gallon of paint right there. That if I shook that thing up with by hand, it probably would have I would had to shake that thing for about 5 minutes. And you can see that was less than a minute and no effort. The whole shaking of a full gallon of paint, you know, takes a whole lot of effort, especially if it's 105° outside. So, here's just a look at the traditional method. I got a gallon of paint. Now, here's one that's been setting for quite a while. Right here, we can get a a close-up look. We've got a whole lot of acrylic resin set over the top. Now, I'm going to begin stirring this. Got some clays down on the bottom. See, this is this method, you know, works. This is, you know, what I did for years. So, it's a just a wooden circ that I got free from my local paint store. And yeah, that's probably going to take, you know, twice as long, two to three times longer to stir that up. I'm starting to see it's starting to look. That's pretty good right there. All mixed up. I definitely with using, you know, a mechanical device, I definitely feel a lot more comfortable that the tint is evenly more evenly dispersed throughout the paint. But that's mixed up good enough there. I'd be good to go for a day. I wouldn't have to stir that up again. That's nice and stirred up, ready to go. So, I got a gallon of paint here. I'm going to open this one up. This one's been setting uh for about a week or so. This is the paint for the academy right here. We've got a little bit of tint buildup. Um some acrylic resin on the top of it. Here is a traditional This is the traditional stir that I've used for years and years and years. This one is probably I don't know probably 5 6 years old. One of the benefits to this I could take a heat gun on this thing, heat it up, and I can peel the paint off. And that's what I've done multiple times when we haven't had time to clean them. Paint starts to build up. This you can't. But this one's a lot lighter weight, smaller shaft. So, and I feel like it's just a little bit more effective stirring the paint. And if you don't have a chuck large enough to hold this thing, that's going to be another issue. Most drills nowadays are big enough that you can hold it. But we'll take a look. Now, I'll stick this in there. But that 5gallon there is now completely mixed up, ready to be used right there. But once again, the stir whip, if I didn't want to take off the lid and risk, you know, paint splattering while I was stirring it. Because as you rise this up, paint is actually going to flick off this thing, as you rise it up to get to the top as it's stirring. And you're not going to have that issue inside the bucket. If you're just whipping it around inside the bucket, it will when it comes out of the hole, the stir whip, it'll do the same thing as it rises out of the hole. If you're spinning it, it's going to flick paint off. So, you definitely want to be careful with that. But I'm going to just going to raise this up, let it drip for a minute. I'm going to carry this to the water. Then I'm going just hook it up to my drill in the water and we'll clean this thing out. So, whatever method you decide to stir up your paint with, make sure you stir up your paint or you're going to have big headaches in the end. If you choose a very effective um hide stir whip or uh you know old school stir stick or just some random device around, you know, stir up your paint, uh you're going to not um regret it or yeah, regret it or not regret it or you'll be glad you did in the end. So, hope you've enjoyed this video. If you have, please give me a thumbs up. Please hit that little notification bell right next to the subscribe button. Subscribe if you haven't. We would appreciate it. It's free, easy to do. All it does is notify you every time we come out with another video. If you want some really cool tips and tricks, one minute tips and tricks, check us out on Instagram and Facebook. The Idaho Painter on Instagram is Idaho Painters. All kinds of really cool hacks, tips, and tricks on painting. Hope you've enjoyed this video. If you have, we'll see you next time. Really out there.