wingless' Tornado II Portable Paint Shaker Evaluation

[wingless]

The Tornado II Portable Paint Shaker has been part of my tool set for well over a decade. It is always called into service during boat bottom painting projects.



This is a very handy tool. It has a standard 120VAC NEMA 5-15 three prong plug on a 6' power cord and a mechanical twist timer.

The clamping system is versatile. It clamps: gallon cans; round quart cans; rectangular quart cans and aerosol cans. I've only used it for the gallon cans.

The locking setup is good, but not perfect. I find that usage of pliers to slightly aid the clamp tightening ensures set and forget. If hand tightened, sometimes it loosens during the cycle, making lots of audible noise, requiring the cycle to be manually stopped.

My usage is to give the gallon of bottom paint a full twist while setting up with other preparation tasks. Prior to using the gallon I give it another full twist. The paint is always fully mixed. It would probably be fully mixed w/ less time.

When I remove / use that mixed gallon, I put the next gallon into the clamp and repeat the shaking cycles.

This is really handy when doing epoxy, like Interlux Interprotect 2000E Epoxy Barrier Coat Paint. The manufacturer specifies first mixing the individual components, then mixing those components together. ZERO issue when using this paint shaker.

The only issue I've had so far is a broken spring. Of course this was in the middle of a project, so I disregarded the instructions about replacing them as a complete set and instead unscrewed the spring fragment from the post and screwed the remaining slightly shorter length onto the post. It worked fine, even though the at-rest position was slightly tilted.

This tool is very handy, provides great results and is a big time saver. I have zero reservations about recommending this paint shaker.