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Cleaning Paint Brushes
Once
you have invested in good painting tools that will last you have a few years,
you will have to maintain them properly for them to last that long. One of the
first things that you will have to do is to clean it well after painting.
Cleaning and removing paint from a paintbrush, roller and a paint pad is not
an easy task. But here are a few easy tips. Follow them and you tools will
look as good as new once cleaned.
 While
painting with water based paints, clean brushes after every two hours and when
painting ends.
Remove extra
paint from pad and brush using a brush-cleaning tool with teeth to scrap the
paint off.
Make a
solution of one gallon of warm water and ½ a cup of fabric softener. The
softener is a wetting agent, which reduces the surface tension of water when
it dissolves in it, thus helping the paint to dissolve quickly. Make many
gallons of this solution.
Dip the brush
or pad into the solution and move it around while counting till 10. The paint
will dislodge itself from the brush and settle at the bottom of the bucket.
Dry the brush
in a paintbrush spinner to remove water from the brush. Make you own spinner.
Take a 5-gallon bucket with a lid. Make an 8-inch hole in the middle of the
lid. Place a plastic trash bag inside the bucket and replace the lid. Now
splatter the brush inside the bucket, the splatter remains inside the plastic
trash bag. Dispose off the plastic bag.
Do not use
dish wash soap to clean brushes. It will cause the bushing and the bristles to
stick together.
After
cleaning the brush in the warm water and fabric softener solution there is no
need to rinse it in water. Repeatedly washing the brush in this solution,
allows the fabric softener to coat the bushing and the bristles, which allows
the paint to flow smoothly from the brush.
Use the same
method to clean rollers and paint pads. Cleaning paint from rollers takes some
more time and a number of dips in the solution. But the end result is the
same. |
