Shaking saves paint?
I've always felt like shaking
a can of paint saves that paint that would adhere to one of those
mixing sticks.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I've been working with polyester and epoxy resins and gelcoats (which have viscosities similar to paints) for over twenty years now.
When handled properly, mixing sticks use almost no paint. After mixing, scrape the paint off the four edges of the stick using the edge of the container. (Alternatively, use the material on the mixing stick to wet the brush or roller that you're going to use).
In my experience much more will remain in the brush or roller than on a properly wiped mixing stick! A long time ago I actually measured this using polyester gelcoat. IIRC, the mixing stick held a gram or so (soaked into the wood). The cup used for mixing (these polyester are 2-component systems; you need to mix in the hardener) and the brush together retained at least 100 grams.
Paints are usually dispersions of pigments and fillers in a binder and solvents. Even though the paint is thixotropic, eventually the solids will end up on the bottom. A mixing stick is the proper tool to manually scrape those solids off the bottom. You'd probably need one of those mechanical shakers or rollers they have in paint shops to do that properly without scraping.