Cleaning up after painting

how do you do that?

NT

The Dandy is a gadget that actually work. (Well, for brushes and rollers, anyway - pads remain a sod to clean.) Couple of quid cheaper direct without the Bezos tax, though:

Put them in a jar of water and leave until next use, works for oil based too.

For solvent based paint, get the bulk of the paint off the brush and then suspend the brush in a pot of solvent, with the bristles held off the bottom of the pot. The paint falls to the bottom and the solvent can be reused after it has dropped clear.

A proper brush cleaner. Changes oil paint residue into something which can be washed off with washing up liquid and hot water. Keep the cleaner in a jam jar etc which can be sealed after use - it doesn't have to be fresh cleaner each time.

Don't like the just use cheap brushes and throw them away idea. A decent brush is much easier to use - but costs enough to make cleaning worthwhile.

These are excellent

Splash out on some of these

Whats not apparent in the photies is the bristle is about twice the length of the cheap brushes, makes laying off a doddle even for us non Rembrants ;-)

Thinking about store-and-go whilst mixing paper paste earlier, could it just be silica gel or similar and a fancy bucket with brush clips?

Another vote for the Dandy! I use both strategies discussed here: throwaway brushes for "average" jobs[1], and better ones for more important jobs. The Dandy makes cleaning the brushes, and especially rollers, much easier.

Adrian, re your Jackson Pollock comment :-) --- you hold the roller inside an old bucket (a big old bucket) to spin it. Amazing how much paint comes out!

J.

Use them a lot and over time they will develope that nice thin edge that you need for cutting in - and look after them.

Cash

To be honest my main problem is with pads

/Jim S

- show quoted text - To be honest my main problem is with pads/q

Ah.... No surgical possibilities?

Jim K

I just use one of those big glass sweet jars with a screw on lid. The ones that all corner sweet jobs used to have on their shelves.

The problem with keeping quality brushes in a humid solvent environment is that the paint on the handle softens and flakes off after a while.

The best solvent to use is Gun wash thinners. Get a 5 litre can at a motor factors for much less than the cost of white spirit.

If you must use white spirit, keep the washings in a large glass container, like an 800 gm hellmans jar, and the solids settle out, allowing the 'clean' supernatant to be poured off and res-used for cleaning the next batch of brushes.