Review: Schmincke Whiskey Set

The Schmincke whiskey watercolor box has been my primary palette for some time now and I've gotten a good sense of what I like and dislike about it so I thought I'd write my first review.

Pros

It's very compact! 12 half pans, a water reservoir, a water tray and mixing space in the palm of your hand.
The build quality is excellent. I've never had water leak from the reservoir.

Cons

Very limited mixing space. The lid is indented to form two mixing wells which many people find limiting.
Fully loaded with water, it might be heavier than you expect.
The lid droops down and rests at a very steep angle that makes your paints flow all over the place.

This is a very compact set ideal for the urban sketcher who wants to be always ready to paint. It comes with eight cakes of colors and integrates a water tray and reservoir. The reservoir holds enough water to fill the tray twice. This set fits perfectly into a kit that includes a sketchbook and a brush. If you want to go absolutely minimalist, you'll probably go for water brushes in which case you can use an even smaller palette that doesn't include a water reservoir. If your kit is big enough to need a small bag, you can carry water separately and, again, don't need the built in water tank. This is actually the situation I'm in right now. I have a small bag with all my painting gear that includes a nalgene bottle so I keep the built in tank empty to prevent rust.

I've made a few modifications and improvements to my set for it to better fit the way I like to paint. The first was to squeeze in another row of pans. From what I've seen online, this is something most people do. From the factory, the box comes with 8 pans and an empty row in the middle. I don't understand why they don't redesign it so it comes with 12 pans. Maybe the space in the middle is for brushes although considering the size of the box, those would have to be some tiny paintbrushes. As is, making the additional pans fit requires a little bit of force.

The second thing I did after I got my box was to make the water tray lock in place when attached in painting position. It hooks onto the frame of the box with a little metal lip that is very loose by default, making the tray move as you clean your brush and fall of completely if you hold the set upside down (which happens to me sometimes, juggling sketchbook, pens, brushes and the watercolor set). A pair of pliers is all you need to improve attachment.

The third problem I fixed, and maybe the thing I like the least about this box, is that the lid that you mix your colors on opens to a very steep angle. This is because the set is quite thick to have enough space for the paints and the water and they wanted the lid to rest on its edge when opened on a flat surface, I assume. I fixed this by putting some epoxy putty on the outside of the box so that the lid rests on that, holding it horizontal when opened.

Finally, the most extensive modification I made was to divide up the inside of the lid into seven mixing wells instead of the two it comes with. I did this with some more epoxy putty, forming little ridges to separate the paints. I left one larger mixing area for when I need to create larger washes. This didn't work so well in the beginning because the rough surface of the epoxy would pull the liquid over the ridges, mixing paints between wells. I fixed this by spraying some radiator enamel on the putty.

Initially, I was afraid that the epoxy would keep the lid from closing properly but that's not the case. This modification has made the set a lot more usable for me since I use small, 14x9 sketchbooks with it where the mixing area provided by the lid suffices.

When I paint, I hold this set in the same hand as my sketchbook using the thumb ring on the bottom. This works very well and is stable and comfortable.

Overall, I really like this set, however, there are a few things I'd like to see improved:

Another lid for more mixing space. Most larger sets have an inner sheet of metal that folds to the opposite side of the lid. Even though it would increase the thickness a little, this box lacks mixing space and could do with one of them.
Make the lid not droop. It's hard to make the lid stay horizontal and also not be springy from the metal hinges but this is really annoying and makes for a frustrating experience when mixing wetter washes.
It would be nice if the lid could somehow be made waterproof so that no paint could leak out once it's closed. I don't feel comfortable carrying this set in my pocket without putting it in a plastic bag first since there's always a little bit of paint that leaks form the mixing area. This is a problem I haven't found a solution to yet. This problem is not specific to this box and I haven't seen a palette yet that doesn't suffer from it.