Swing the brushes and rollers gently side to side to remove excess paint thinner. Set the brushes and rollers on the newspaper and dab them with paper towels to remove excess liquids. Allow them to air dry. If all of the oil-based paint is not removed, you will have. Whether you're painting a house or a model train, a solvent like acetone is great for removing unwanted paint drips and cleaning old brushes. This solvent works very well at removing oil-based paints, enamels and acrylic paint. It can also be reused several times when stored properly. Acetone works equally well on dried and fresh paint. If you're painting with a water based enamel you use a synthetic bristle brush and you clean up with soap and water. Sling as much water out of the brush as you can and then wrap it in a dry paper towel to keep the bristles straight. Never wash a natural bristle brush with water- it just swells up and fans out the. If you are planning to continue your painting project the next day, just keep the paint, brush and/or roller in the paint tray and cover with foil or cling wrap. The next morning, run the brush or roller over a newspaper a few times and it will be ready to use. After the job is completed wash the rollers and brushes and paint tray. Acetone can be used for cleaning off enamel paints from brushes and other surfaces but if it is used as a thinner it can come to complications. Acetone can dissolve plastic, for example. So if an Acetone diluted Enamel Paint is used on plastic it can come to complications.
- Acrylic Enamel Paint Cleanup
- Cleaning Paint Brushes Video
- Cleaning Enamel Paint Brushes
- Cleaning Enamel Paint From Brushes
Follow these simple steps to properly clean paint brushes after your next do-it-yourself project.
Acrylic Enamel Paint Cleanup
Photo: istockphoto.com
Cleaning Paint Brushes Video
An investment in high-quality paint brushes is wasted if they are not properly cleaned and stored after use. Indeed, rushing through the end of a paint job can leave you with flecks of paint in your brushes—which will lead to an imperfect finish on your next project—as well as misshapen bristles. So invest the extra two minutes it takes to do the job right and follow this guide on how to clean paint brushes.
MATERIALS AND TOOLS Available on Amazon
– Newspapers
– Mineral spirits
– Turpentine
– Mild liquid dish soap
– Small plastic buckets
– Paint brush and roller spinner
– Rags
The Right Way to Clean Paint Brushes
Photo: istockphoto.com
- Use up what paint remains on your brush on whatever you are painting.
Press the bristles against the inside of the paint can, and lift it up and out as you do—that will squeeze out more paint. Paint away the rest on newspapers, because cleaning a brush is made easier if you remove as much of the paint from its bristles as possible. - Next, examine the can of paint, and use the appropriate solvent.
The right solvent makes the job easy by loosening dried paint, but the wrong one will probably be no help at all. Fill a small bucket with one of the following depending on the type of paint you’ve used:- Mineral spirits or turpentine to remove oil-based paint
- Hot water and mild liquid dish soap to clean paint brushes that have been used to apply latex paint
- Immerse the paint brush in the solvent.
Stir the solvent with the brush for about 10 seconds, wiping and squeezing the bristles on the sides of the container. Work the bristles between your fingers, and run a brush comb through them to remove excess paint without damaging the bristles. If some of the paint has begun to dry on the brush, soaking the brush may be necessary. - Wash it in warm soapy water in a utility sink or bucket.
Once the paint has been removed from the brush, warm soapy water will clean the brush of the solvent and remaining paint. - Shake or spin the paintbrushes dry.
Before you store your paint brushes, you’ll want to remove all of the water from their bristles. Many DIYers will do so by shaking the brush at the top of a bucket and then blotting the brush dry with a clean rag or newspaper.But, for those that have plans to do a lot of painting and wish to preserve their tools, a brush and roller spinner will come in handy. This dual-purpose tool will speed-dry either type of paint applicators using centrifugal force. Just attach a paint brush to the bottom of the tool, then pump the top several times to spin it and fling all water off the business end of the brush.
- When storing paint brushes, hang them up or lay them flat.
Hanging paint tools from a pegboard in your workshop or craft room is not only a great organizational method, but it ensures that the brush’s bristles don’t get bent out of shape stuffed in a bin somewhere. Replace the packaging on your paint brush to maintain its form and prolong its useful lifespan.
Photo: istockphoto.com
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Hey hey. Happy Thursday!
I’m sharing a super cute and easy little spring craft over at Remodelaholic today. Amidst all of the more home renovation stuff we’ve been up to I find it fun to just sit at the table with a little glue and glitter every now and again and work on something that I don’t need to think “will the future home owner’s like this?”, “how will this effect resale?” or “how exactly am I going to repaint the entire exterior all by myself?”. You know, without making a mess of the entire sidewalk. 🙂
And in the last couple of weeks we had visits from my mom, mother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece (who turned 12 while she was here!) so there’s been quite a bit of non-house stuff going on, in addition to some just-for-plain-fun house stuff. You know … pillows and plantings and decorating a church pew stuff.
But, back along the home improvement front, we talked about the primer we used on the exterior here. And I was thrilled to get more “sometimes we’ve just gotta use some VOCs” comments than “I would never ever use VOCs, even if it was apparent it would be the best product for the job”. So thanks for that. Sometimes it just is what it is, if you know what I mean.
And with the use of the oil based primer and paint comes either the a) throw the brush away after every use or, b) figure out how to clean all of that nasty stuff off that dang brush solution.
And since good quality paint brushes are not exactly pocket change I opted to try my hand at option b. And it worked.
Like most new things, the process for figuring out how to clean my oil based paint brushes started with a little googling and I quickly found this tutorial from Kristi, but I didn’t have any mineral spirits on hand so I improvised and after a few minutes I had a nice and clean paint brush.
Here’s what worked for me.
All you need:
- oil based paint soaked brush
- rag
- disposable cup
- acetone (the active ingredient in fingernail polish remover)
- olive oil
- running tap water
- a little bit of patience
1 – Find some oil paint and dunk your brush in it. 😉
2 – Wipe as much excess paint out of the brush with a rag, or in my case a dish towel.
3 – Fill a cup with a cup or so of acetone, I happened to have a can of it on hand from that time I tried to cut a bottle with string. Acetone is inexpensive an easy to find in any home improvement store.
4 – Dunk the brush and swish it around. Much of the paint will magically fall off and accumulate in the bottom of the cup. It is seriously kind of amazing how thick this paint is and how much it clumps up at the bottom of the cup.
You could dispose of this acetone paint mixture and repeat if you feel like it would help. Depending on the brush I sometimes do this twice.
Cleaning Enamel Paint Brushes
5 – Pour about a teaspoon of oil onto the brush. Keep the brush over the sink and warm tap water running so the paint doesn’t accumulate in your sink. I used olive oil, but I’m sure vegetable or another kind would work just fine.
6 – Work it, work it, work it. Get your fingernails and tips right in there and literally work the paint out of the brush.
Run your fingers right up through the bristles and you will be a mess, and now that I’m looking at the picture, you should start out by taking off your rings, especially if they happen to be of the wedding variety. Oops.
You’re going to need to repeat this step a few times, and don’t forget to keep the water running. But I was so happy that at the end of it all I had a perfectly usable brush.
Cleaning Enamel Paint From Brushes
I did put it in the fridge until the next time I used it, because that works whenever you don’t want to wash your brush at all between uses (we all know that by now, right?!?!) and I just wanted to be safe. But I’ve gone back to using the brush with regular old paint and have since washed it a few more times with just water and it is definitely good to go.
So, for a few dollars and a few minutes I saved one lone paint brush. That makes my cheap self a very happy cheap self. 🙂
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