Hand Painting Pail!! Uses 2 Liter Pop/Soda Bottles for Reusable/Disposable Inserts.

Hand Painting Pail

Uses 2 Liter Pop/Soda Bottles for inserts.

If your a Walmart Mountain Lightning addict like me, there's not a better way to put those old empty 2 liter bottles to work!!! Introducing, the first of its kind (that I could find anyway) reusable 2 liter bottle hand painting pail.

UPDATE 2023-11-08:

• V2 Strap
  • Made the strap more flexible and easier to assemble (Twist into place). Still need to use a screw driver to get it started, but just a light push is all you need now.
  • Shortened the strap to fit smaller hands
• V2 Paint Pail
  • Removed the indent for the magnet mount surface. This should allow more different sized magnets to be used in case the didn't fit into the space I allocated for my hard drive magnet.
  • Might do something more plug-n-play in the future for the magnet face.
• Uploaded OpenScad files
  • I'm SO SO SO SO sorry for anyone that looks at these. This was definitely not my most organized or well thought out work. So if it makes your eyes bleed, I'm not responsible.
  • Some of the parameters fully work, others…. well, not so much…. There are at least comments….. mostly…..

Printing

The paint pail prints in 3 pieces:

Main Pail

• Material: Any hard material should be fine (I printed mine in PLA+)
• Orientation: Print standing up
• Supports: Normal supports at 80 degrees (just needed to support the bottom, nothing else needs support).
• Perimeter & fill: I only used 2 wall layers and 20% fill to save on some filament.

Top

• Material: Any hard material should be fine (I printed mine in PLA+)
• Orientation: Print upside down
• Supports: None
• Perimeter & fill: Doesn't really matter it's so thin.

Strap

• Material: TPU
• Orientation: Print flat
• Supports: None
• Perimeter & fill: 3 wall layers and 20% fill. But I'm sure most options will be just fine.

Assembly

Strap

The strap is currently a tight fit. However, with the help of a small screwdriver, it will twist in place just fine.

1. Slide the strap sidewise up from the bottom
2. Twist the strap to lock it into place
3. If it wont twist, use a small screwdriver to help it by pushing on the “T” through the hole to help it rotate (It shouldn't be hard to rotate with the V2 strap). Please be careful and don't stab yourself with the screwdriver. ( I didn't do that, but have done it in the past :-( )
4. Adjust the bottom of the strap to where it is comfortable. Again, the current strap might not adjust perfect for tiny hands right now, but I'll talk a look later.
5. I recommend adding additional support for the strap mounts on the bottom. The bottom holes are 3mm diameter and about over 7mm deep. I recommend using 6mm length cylinder head screws or 8mm round head screws with a washer (Use the former if you want to still be able to adjust it on the fly, and use the later if you want the strap mounted permanently)

Brush Magnet

Use whatever you can find that's strong enough to hold a brush. I used an old hard drive magnet. Also, I realize that the magnet face may not be perfect for everyone, but it's amazing what a little epoxy will do, or re-mix it, or print a fillet piece and epoxy that into the cutout. I'll probably also just make a cover that slips over the magnet brush holder (with a flat surface) to make it easier to mount different size magnets (In case they don't fit in the current magnet cutout)

1. Epoxy the magnet into place

Two Liter bottle inserts

1. Roughly cut the 2 liter bottle in half. You'll probably have to do a little trimming because the paint pail is just a touch shorter than some 2 liter bottles. You can use both the top and bottom of the bottle as an insert.
2. Push the 2 liter bottle into the pail. It's can be a little tight but should work for most 2 liter bottles.

Top/Paint Scraper

1. Lightly snap the top/paint scraper into place after the 2 liter bottle is inserted. The top had nubs that will hold it in place.
2. Rinse and re-use or replace if you're feeling wasteful

Happy Painting!!!