Today’s Tool: Palette Scraper

Although some artists love to paint with them, one of the primary purposes of a palette knife is cleaning our palettes.

Even though I do use mine for scraping up wet paint piles to save for later, a palette knife doesn’t work nearly as well for the serious cleaning jobs as a razor scraper.

I’ve used this one for decades. For a couple years I used a small plastic one, but it was tough to hold and eventually broke.

A Metal Razor Palette Scraper – this one is a couple decades old!

The razor scraper works beautifully on glass and enamel – hard smooth surfaces. Be very careful on a wooden palette or you might take a chunk out. They can also scratch other surfaces – keeping the blade with the same side up each time causes a small bend to occur which helps keep the outer tips slightly raised and avoids scratches.

When I started using a lighter acrylic top for my outdoor palette I bought a plastic scraper (called Skrapr) at a kitchen gadget store because I was afraid the razor would cut into the acrylic.

They didn’t work out as well as I had hoped though because the edge isn’t straight or sharp enough.

Fortunately, I discovered that my trusty metal scraper has performed flawlessly even on the acrylic surface.

Do you have a question or tool you’re wondering about? Comment below and it might just end up as our next Painting Tip ‘r Tool!

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