Wet Palette

Yesterday was D. I. Y. time on my workbench. Finally I decided to create a new wet palette. Actually I tried one some time ago but wasn't too impressed. But next week I'll have to highlight a dozen of napoleonic KGL riflemen and so I thought mixing the colours once and then conserve it for a few days might be a good idea. Anyway making a wet palette is a rather easy task and here's the way I did it.

In the light of recent events among us wargamers and bloggers please be warned: 

Knives are sharp and dangerous. Always cut away from you and keep your fingers - and thumbs - out of the blade's way !!

1.) Grunding and sponge

To give the palette some stiffness I used a piece of styrofoam as base. Nothing special just a waste piece from a terrain board project. On top of that a placed a kitchen sponge which I cut to the right size. This sponge will hold the water to keep the palette wet. Alternatively you could use folded kitchen paper.

2.) Layer

Next is a layer of water-permeable but not resorbing material. I'm not sure whether which alternatives there are but I'm used to baking parchment for this purpose. Just cut some pieces to the right size for grounding and sponge. Of course you'll only need one at the same time but it will not work too long so have some pieces in reserve.

3.) Filling and fitting:

Nearly done. So fill the sponge with water and fix the grounding, the sponge and the baking paper well together. Actually you have to fix all things somehow because otherwise the baking paper will roll up and our nice wet palette wouldn't work.

4.) Cap

Finally you'll need a cap to close the wet palette to prevent drying out. Since I used a kind of chocolate box to put the wet palette in that was easy.

Well then, that's all about it. An absolutely easy tutorial for a helpful device. Next time I'll present some tokens I painted for a club fellow of mine and next week some adventures with the wet palette.