For a few months now I've been looking at ink mixers. Not wanting to spend $2,100 on a new one, I decided to scour the forum here, and see what everone is using. I know a lot of guys do already use a drill press, but I wanted to break down what I also did with the vise.
I bought a floor mount drill press from Harbour Freight for $192. And their mountable 4" vise for $16.
We took a piece of strap metal and bent it to match the shape of a 1 gallon bucket.
We then grinded and smoothed a spot on each end of the vise, and welded it on there, making a adjustable bracket for our 1 gallon buckets to sit in.
We got some smaller 1/2" strap metal and made a double propeller for our mixing "blade". We bent each blade in opposite directions of itself to make a whirlpool of ink while mixing in the bucket.
We just have to bolt on the vise, and flip it on. It works better than I could have imagined, and our white inks mixes in the morning while our dryer warms up.
I just thought I would share.