A poor quality brush is not worth the effort, in most cases, to clean out. They are typically made to be used once and then thrown away. A good quality brush is worth cleaning well. I have brushes that I have had for over thirty years. They were very expensive when I bought them and work today as good as they did thirty years ago. Cleaning a good brush does take a little time, but is worth the effort. The best way to clean a brush is to soak it for a while in what ever is used for clean up. Water, mineral spirits, or some other type of solvent. The brush must be soaked with the cleaning material and then squeezed out many times until the paint has been removed from it. You will never get 100% of the paint out of it, but you have to remove as mush as possible. If you use liquid soap and warm water and work the soap into the brush, this will help remove a lot of the hard to remove paint close to the stock. Rinse in warm clean water and then remove as much of the water as possible.

If I'm cleaning a nylon brush and it was used with a water based paint, I will hold the brush upside down under a faucet running warm water through the bristles getting as much water up against the stock as possible. This is where the paint is that you have the hardest time removing. After I have removed as much of the paint as I can I remove as much of the water from it as possible by rolling the handle back and forth between the palms of my hands as fast as I can. If the brush is one of my expensive brushes, I will have a small solution of fabric softener to dip the brush into. Let soak for a few minutes and then rinse. Repeat the process to remove the water and the replace the brush in the sleeve that it came in. If you don't have the sleeve any more, you can roll the brush in either news paper or a paper towel so that the brush maintains its form. Store in an area where there will be some ventilation so the brush will dry properly.

When I have cleaned a bristle brush (for oil based products) as best as possible in the solvent required, I will remove as mush of the solvent as possible in the same manner that I remove excess water. Then I use liquid soap and warm water to further clean the brush. Follow the instructions for the nylon brush at this stage of cleaning.

 

Roger Anghis, MKD Builders, Inc.

 

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