Category: Review

I have recently rebuilt and reorganized my home hobby space coming close to completing the vision. In June 2023, when I moved to my new home and had the had a clean slate for my hobby. The largest and latest component of that vision is the MixRack Paint Storage system that I have recently received. This is such an interesting product I thought it deserved a write up and review of the system.

As a brand new product which has been crowdfunded on gamefound July 2023 and begun shipment to backers. I’m writing my experiences, provide feedback, and give people insight of a product. This will be sold to all hobbyists further in the 2025 year.

My Hobby Space Background 

I have always been a believer that your hobby space is a reflection of the mind space of an individual. The way they think, the way they organize and how they operate as a person. I have always enjoyed Facebook threads of people showing their hobby space. I also follow tags like #hobbyspace and #paintdesk on Instagram. One of my weaknesses is taking the time to watch the various YouTube videos of people rebuilding their areas.

In June of 2023 I moved into a brand new home, and therefore had the opportunity for a whole new hobby space. The stars were aligned enough to synergize with the Gamefound crowdfunding project of MixRack Modular Paint Station. I absolutely loved the concept presented and the early marketing was spot on and I decided to follow it from the very beginning, roughly around March of 2023.

The biggest issue with my hobby desk was trying to maintain being organized. Also needing to limit access to the tiny hands of my children who are curious about mommy’s toys and hobbies. The concept of having drawers to pull out paint would fundamentally push the paint far enough away to reduce that lone bottle of paint stolen by a child.

As a 3D printing enthusiast I have made my fair share of 3D printable hobby desk organizers, paint racks, and tools. However, there has always been something that I have not loved about them and not been a perfect fit.  So I decided to back the MixRack project. 

MixRack Development and Evolution

When first seeing Mixrack’s idea and project it was evident that the company of Grim Rabbit games developed a solution to a personal problem and desired to share it with others. What has been the most fascinating part of supporting the project has been watching the evolution of the product itself. From trying to account for everyone’s individualized needs, the large variety of products and usage of the product while constantly improving in communication of the significant amount of complexity of ways to build your MixRack.

Overall there are 5 primary sizes of MixRacks with the Cave variant going standard Cave, Cave XL and Cave XXL which increase the spacing of the center area.

Drawers can come in several variants: Short, Tall, and high Capacity. There are also Wall Mounted MixRacks as well as shelves that can mount to Billy Bookcases and Kallax Cubes. The depth of drawers also account for standard or Large bottles. An example of how many bottles of paint can be held in each drawer is shown in this table below.

Improvements I’ve Noticed in the Design

Now that I have built and received my own Mixrack I can now see how the project has evolved significantly. Since the launch of the project it is obvious that Grim Rabbit has not been idle.Many of the original prototype of Mixrack used exclusively MDF to cut out and build its ideas. But since that time the polish and sophistication of the design is evident.

Note: I am comparing my final project to the YouTube Video: Grimrack Introduction with images grabbed from the video itself.

This list is in no order of significance.

**Author late edit** If you would to see a video of these design improvements they also made a video talking about many of these updates found: Mixrack Early Janurary Update. Admittedly at the time of writing I forgot this video existed so enjoy the side by side comparisons.

Drawer Design

The individual drawer that holds the paint I have observed significant improvement than its original design. Here are a few examples I’ve noticed.

Drawer design has the handles as apart of the drawer instead of an extra MDF cut piece. This ends up looking more polished and uses less overall hardware. They have even designed front and back spines for a more polished final look. This also has the secondary benefit of helping the product bowing.

The option of drawers in black acrylic over MDF cut was added after the campaign closed and available for backers to pick. While I didn’t get black acrylic it is great to see that they were willing to continue to provide other materials.

Drawer Slides are now a formed from injected molded plastic instead of wood, shown in the red arrow.

Shelves now have variable widths which are capable to change based on your need and width of the bottles to be held more securely. The original design only had one hole, shown in the red box)

Tool Holder, Paint brush holder, cup holder etc. is now made out of plastic instead of multiple wood pieces. Observation is that not all pieces are injected plastic molded and the tool holder was 3D printed. My assumption is that it is a desire for this to be injected plastic in the future.

Shelves can also now have paint samples for improved organization. While I did not opt into adding this to my system it is an improvement added as an option for backers.

Side panels are also slot into the aliminium instead of fixed on the side which I like a lot.

Crowdfunding Communication

Since the announcement of the project in March 2023 there have been a total of 54 campaign updates since the time of this writing. This comes out to be approximately 2 updates a month given to backers. Each and every update has been to assist in the consumer understanding the product as well as be transparent about the learning process of trying to take a singular prototype into a manufactured project that can be sent to the masses and all of the logistics involved. 

In my opinion I think the transparency and sharing of the trials and tribulations of this product has been the absolute best I’ve ever seen in any crowdfunding project. While the it did not ship on its original estimated time much of the issues were out of the control of the team. Each hiccup was professionally communicated with information and updated estimates to the best of the ability of the team. Trust me I was eagerly anticipating more information and getting my product I admit rather impatiently but it was well worth the wait.

To help answer questions, and have community support there is also a fantastic discord community. I know that before packing Nikki and Jack the original two person team at Grim Rabbit check each order and will email people if they believe something is wrong for clarification. Customer support and communication is one of the most tricky things to do for any company and it is a job I do not desire to do again. I think that Grim Rabbit has personally smashed it out of the park and easily for this reason alone i’m going to be a loyal customer for some time to come.

My Order and Assembly

As an early backer I have been lucky enough to already receive my order right before my work holiday break of December 18th. I decided to use my MixRack system as more long term storage and using my current paint racks for the “currently used paint”. That way it is easier to get things up and off my desk. I ended up purchasing a Badger and Grizzly as my primary builds with two standard sets of shelves and 1 large bottle set of shelves. I’ve added an extra shelf, three side panels and various miscellaneous pieces like tool holders, brush holders, and an Organizer Drawer this totaled out to be around $340 including shipping.

My immediate first impression was genuinely how impressively wrapped everything was to protect the product in shipment. Directions and information was right on top with a large bag of hardware easy to find. My kids ended up playing with all the packing peanuts to pretend it “snowed” in the basement. That was an interesting mess to clean up but we had a blast. 

The first step I took was to set up an assemble my MixRack was to setup a staining table which couldn’t be too big due to limited space so I knew the staining would take the longest. I ended up using the stain recommended by GrimRabbit in one of their updates. The product used was Littlefair’s Interior Wood Dye Dark Walnut.

Overall I was very happy and ended up going with two coats. However, I did end up running out of stain since I experimented with it on a project before my MixRack arrived and had to pause assembly operations for about a week due to ordering more and the holidays themselves. My hobby space ended up becoming Santa’s workshop and therefore a disaster space requiring me to pause the project.

While I did also varnish my pieces I admit I regret doing so. Due to the many holes of the MDF cut out while painting it on I would inevitably end up with with varnish seeping through the holes causing a non ideal stain of varnish on the other side. No matter what I tried with wiping off the other side, being incredibly careful, etc the varnish did not quite turn out the way I hoped. I did use the recommended Zinsser Bulls Eye SealCoat, also I was terrible at cleaning my brush and any brush I ended up using for the sealer I threw away. Long term these spots are hidden by the shelves themselves and are minor cosmetic things. If anyone knows of how to apply this better to avoid the issue please mention in the comments below.

Admittedly while I was waiting on more stain I was not idle. I was itching to see if the Mixrack would fit into my vision and fit on my hobbydesk inside the window ledge shelf I built for it. Turns out the Mixrack was much deeper than I thought it would be (oops). This was definitely poor measurements on my end. Don’t worry I find a solution. 

While assembling I started to discover themes and ways to make assembly easier which I recommend for all.

• When in doubt try to put as much of the hardware together before as you can. An example of that is to add the L bracket screws to the L brackets before putting into the aluminum. Add the Screw and T nut on the plastic drawer slides before putting on the aluminum.

• Side panels should be checked for direction BEFORE finalizing and screwing it in. What I didn’t know is that the side panels have directionality for the shelves so which way they are facing is important. So if you are not careful you will have to unscrew your Mixrack to fix the side panels.

Issues and Confusion while Assembling

 I did run into a few issues while assembling my Mixrack and my questions were quickly answered on the discord. 

One example which might happen for some but I have told will be fixed for future orders is that the side panels were not cut to accommodate for the L brackets and required an easy snip to cut away the excess material.

I have also been confused as to the spacing of the badger since there is a gap in the center to accommodate an aluminum bar if desired. I wish there was a dedicated spacer provided to accommodate for even spacing of the badger. There was a little bit of trail and error.

I did also receive excess parts and were short others. With a quick email to the Grim Rabbit team I did get sorted and shipped new parts. I am currently waiting for the final pieces but was very happy to how receptive they were. I still have not received my package but should arrive today or tomorrow.

Possible ways for Improvement

As a product that is early in the hands of the consumer, I am sure that the team is going to get flooded with ideas for improvement.

• I think that the 3D printed provided spacers Standard (S) and Large Bottle (LB) could actually be one 3D printed part rather than two which would save on 3D printing time. Printing one rectangle with short side being Standard spacing and long ways being Large Bottle would be really slick. The Large bottle spacer is skinny to work in this function.
• I’d love to be able to purchase 3D printed or laser cut designs for replacement pieces. I have already broken some MDF shelf brackets and if I could 3D print ones to keep them more sturdy in the long run that would be amazing. Or being able to purchase them in acrylic to go with my MDF shelves.
• I admittedly forgot what all I ordered and had to have my gamefound order open to figure out what I had available to assemble. I also looked up product images to try to imagine how things should look when I’m done. I would have loved to have an order overview summary with my order and perhaps a product image or two of what they were.
• Some bags such as aluminum bars were labeled with Sizes. I wish that other pieces such as MDF bags were labeled as well. It wasn’t until after I assembled that I figured out what I was looking out through some trial and error.
• Better transparency of when to use a 9 mm vs an 11 mm screw. I started to use them interchangeably and don’t know when it is better to use a 9 mm or an 11 mm screw.

Overall things were very straight forward but there are minor improvements to overall documentation that could be made. The product itself is spot on.

Current Final Build!

While I am still waiting on parts for finalizing my Grizzly Drawers this is my finalized build so far. My kids loved helping me put paint into my paint racks. I’ll make sure to post absolutely final photos when I have them.

Finalized Builds from Other MixRacks

I have been given permission to also share other’s MixRack builds from the discord community. So to get an idea of how Mixrack and look on other’s hobby spaces check it out!

Conclusion

Overall I am extremely happy with my Mixrack and surprised just how much these systems hold paint. I have consolidated most if not all of my collection into just the two racks and can easily see how simple it would be to expand and add more shelves. I find the system to be of incredible make with small tweaks to be made to improve the product long term. The customer service as been one of the best I’ve ever seen and that alone would make me a loyal customer for years to come.

I do think that the current Mixrack system is expensive within good reason but the price point would make this comparable of a dream setup similar to HobbyZone and I personally prefer it. The only thing that HobbyZone hobby organizations have over the MixRack is drawer solutions with enclosed spaces not just paint.

I definitely look forward to buying more and perhaps will include a small organizer, cub for tabletop wargaming prize support in the future as I do run events in my region.

To my knowledge the storefront to buy your own Mixrack will be open once all backers of the gamefound have been shipped. Currently the original backers Wave 1 is in shipping followed by Wave 2 & 3 backers. Once I have a link to final store front I’ll post a link here.

Go check out the MixRack Paint Solution Gamefound for more information!

If there are any questions about this or myself please do not hesitate to ask in the comments below.

I look forward to painting more in my new hobby space. Keep painting,

Crazmadsci “Carrie”

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