Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[Bitumen Boy]

While the weather's fit - and not knowing when it might be so again! - I'm getting on with a bit of painting outside. Now obviously, I want my brushes clean before I put them away (some of them I've had for years) and when I say clean I don't just mean a quick slush around in white spirit, but a thorough wash with soap and water until no trace of pigment comes out of the brush. With the older natural bristle brushes, it's no problem - takes a couple of minutes, tops. The modern, synthetic brushes (using the same paint) by comparison are a real pain, although I can work up a good lather no bother, it takes a good 10-15 minutes to get them really clean, and you can imagine what sort of mood I'm in afterwards... It's not just oil paint either, I find I get similar results with waterbased paint - the synthetic brushes are much more longwinded to clean than the natural bristles.

Has anyone come up with a workaround for this? Maybe I should be using detergent rather than cheapy soap? I don't reckon on buying any more synthetics if I can help it, but I don't want to sling brushes that, even if they are a pain to clean, give a reasonable paint finish. Any thoughts on this welcome!

[Roger-hatchy]

Bit late but.
I am still using brushes My Father had.

I do the usual clean with the relevent solvent.

I then clean with washing up liquid, fairy liquid or similar
I tend to pound them hard in the sink, and also use a nail brush to scrub them out.
(If they can't take this they are no good IMO)

I then wash with normal, hand, soap, that kills the detergent.

Hang to dry then wrap in plastic bag, or cling film, and store them flat.

there is an old established company that used to have a good reputation, I bought a set of their brushes last year, washed them with white spirit after the first use, and ended up with a sink of bristtles and an empty ferrule

[47p2]

I use a soap powder solution to clean the brushes
_________________
ROVER
One of Britain's Fine Cars

[Bitumen Boy]

Thanks for the replies guys, I reckon I'll try washing up liquid next time on these particular brushes, see if it works any faster than ordinary soap.

Roger, your post reminds me of something that happened to me a couple of years back that may be worth relating... I had been using a 4"emulsion brush that had, apparently, belonged to my grandfather - who I never even met - which, after many years good service, started to shed bristles like nobody's business, and was replaced. I got a new one - a Harris, but fairly ordinary mixed bristle - from Screwfix, painted a couple of ceilings and so on with ordinary emulsion, then one day after about a week, I had washed this brush out and went to the back door to shake the water out... Imagine my surprise when the bristles flew across the yard en bloc, leaving an empty ferrule behind! The bristles were all held in some kind of resin, but there seemed to be no fixing of the ferrule beyond a very light crimping which I thought very poor. So anyway, these Harris brushes are suppposed to be guaranteed, but by this time I'd lost the Screwfix paperwork, so I took a couple of photos and wrote to Harris with them, wasn't going to pay for parcel post on the off chance! Couple of weeks later, I had a very apologetic letter from Harris, who said they were dispatching a replacement seperately - no quibble, no hassle. To be honest I thought "yeh right, believe it when I see it", but only a day or two later a parcel arrived containing a new 4" brush - pure bristle, wooden handle - and some 11/2" and 2" brushes the same. They're known as Harris T-class and they're rather nice good luck finding any in the shops, though I think they're available online. Best of all, I still had the original failed brush, and managed to repair it perfectly well with some hot glue I wrote back saying how impressed I was with their customer service, thinking this sort of thing definitely needs to be encouraged, I know I wouldn't have gotten a parcel of free brushes off Screwfix..!

All in all, I thought I did pretty well for the price of a stamp