Make your own paint FROM SCRATCH! // Hand tool woodworking

Make your own paint to put that special final touch on your woodworking projects!

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[ChuckUnderFire]

Bless your poor supportive wife for being patient for months while you turn a simple furniture request into a fantastic follow-along series for us.

[boriszaprudin]

In Finland, we still use a lot of self-made traditional red paint with the red pigment hematide (iron oxide III), which is common and costs around 1€/kg. That's why there are so many red houses here (you can google for the images). One of the common paint recepies includes fat-free milk (1 liter), 400g of pigment and 200g of porcelain cement. Just mix well and paint. I used it in the last summer and it worked great, looked wery similar to what you've got on the video.

[TheCaptainmaim]

I loved this video! My wife really liked it, as well, and she has no interest in woodworking. Keep it up, Rex!

[spiffmark]

What I love about your videos is I always think "Oh, I know this information but it'll be nice to get a refresher with a Rex flair". Then, you show me stuff I didn't know, I get more of a "real world lens" rather than my stuffy books, and there's little tips along the way. Thanks for what you do.

[ChuckUnderFire]

It’s funny how much you DON’T want to touch the curdled milk. The easiest way to separate with the curds from the way is put it in the muslin... wrap it up... squeeze.

[buffalojones]

Pretty disappointed that you didn't find some colored beetles and bust out a mortar and pestle :D

[magicdaveable]

Rex, milk paint is very durable if you mix tung oil into the paint.
Traditional milk paint was develop as a wood coating that actually wear off over time. When used outdoors on a barn it very slowly washes off with the rain storms. This quality allows the wood to breathe. Sealing wood with commercial paint such as latex gives the appearance of protection but that "rubber envelope" only seals one side which traps moisture inside the structure. This creates mold, mildew, rot, etc. I love milk paint and when used with a small percentage of tung oil thinned with real turpentine dries to a very durable semi-gloss finish.
I learned about using milk paint on period furniture about 40 years ago from an "old guy" that built in the Early American style.

[stauffap]

Maybe i can share some of my experiences with linseed oil here, since i've done a lot of testing with it. I've experimented a lot with raw linseed oil (no additives whatsoever). And linseed oil really wants DIRECT sunlight, if you want it to dry quickly. In the summer one good day of direct sunlight can be enough to dry it. But it might also up to three days if you don't have direct sunlight.

I've also added iron oxide as a pigment and it worked just fine as long as you put it into the sun.

I also experimented with casein glues and because of that i also know how milk based paint turns out right. Basically if you use milk you want to use fat free milk, because the fat in the milk will give your paint a greasy feel. But actually you really don't want to go through the trouble of buying milk and isolating the casein, by adding some kind of acid. It's easier (especially with your bad experiences with curdled milk) to just buy casein. They sell this stuff to body builders and you want to get the unflavoured stuff without additives (calcium caseinate for example). To disolove the casein you need some kind of base. Calcium hydroxide (lime water) is quite traditional for this purpose. You mix it really well in the right ration with water and this basically gives a casein glue that is fairly water resistant, but you would use the glue as a base for your paint obviously.

I've also successfully experimented with traditional violine varnishes consisting of just linseed oil and spruce resin (requires a whole process to produce the varnish and can be quite dangerous).

[erkeltree]

Bees wax and mineral oil is so much easier, and easier to touch up. Nice job on the cabinet, kudos for making it a family project.

[uktony]

About 35 years ago my wife and I were moving out of a rented flat and we needed to paint a room before handing back the keys. I only had white emulsion and the room was pink (this was the 1980s !). I mixed red food colouring into the white paint and painted the whole room. It looked AWFUL, so had to go out quickly and buy pink paint to repaint it the night before handing back the keys when I should have been packing. Never, ever use food colouring as a pigment!😁.

[dinosilone]

Rex, about 20 years ago, milk paint was a kind of obsessive subject on the old "hand tools mailing list", AKA The Porch. There were a bunch of recipes kicking around, and none of them called for curdled milk. I developed one that I used for a toy box for my kids. That toy box has lived on a screened porch for 20 years, has been kicked, knocked against, subjected to NJ winters and summers - and that paint will probably still be there to find by archeologists in 1000 years - it's stronger than the wood. If you're interested in the formula, let me know and I'd be happy to share it. You won't need a respirator... :D

[leaveswalker]

Awesome video, and thank you! I’ve been really inspired to push myself as a woodworker and tool restorer thanks largely to your content.

[thomashverring]

Whaaaat, you didn't make your own pigment?! Really, Rex!

No, just joking. Excellent and very funny video! Love what you do :^)

And, yes, I've tried drinking old milk ... It took me off milk for a long, long time.

[craigtate]

Love the way you think. I try to build/fix nearly every lil piece I can from basic materials. Albiet with metal mostly. Occasionally wood

[MegaVader]

Awesome video Rex, you're the king of craftsmanship!

[ChasenR]

Keep up the great work Rex. You never fail to impress.

[chrissalch]

If anyone else is looking to try making their own oil paint, you’ll probably want to look into a drying agent or alkyd rather than pure linseed oil. I use a walnut alkyd mixed with walnut oil for fine art paint (much higher pigment load and more paste like than fluid). A little of the alkyd goes a long way and adding more turps will get you faster drying as well. But artist paint is definitely a different kind of animal.

[georgesweap]

There is nothing wrong with taking an idea as far as you can! 👍👍👍💖

[QuadDoc]

That came out really nice! It's definitely a piece I'd be proud of. Another great video! Thanks for sharing Rex!!

[b.simmons]

Thanks for another fun and informative video, Rex. Something I like to do to add that touch of color to my wood projects is to use thinned water based acrylic paints. The color intensity can be adjusted by adding more or less water and you can still see the grain.
Thanks for helping to keep us shut-ins sane.