How To Soften A Hard Paint Brush (10-Step Guide) Saturate the brush bristles with warm soapy water Apply dish soap and lather it up Place the brushes in a glass jar and swirl into a lather. You can actually see the vinegar dissolve the paint. I included a video of the action. (Please excuse the upside down portion of it. My videographer is 11 and hereby adds the disclaimer that he is not a professional. However, he was paid well with cookies.) Video - How to Clean Hardened Paint Brushes. 'Labr Saver' takes hardened paint out of brushes. Johnnie ChuokeHappy Handyman July 25, 2010 Updated: Sep. 29, 2016 7:40 a.m. Facebook Twitter Email. Mix fabric softener and warm water in a bucket. Begin swirling your paint brush in the mixture until paint starts to come off and sink to the bottom of the bucket. Once clean, rinse off any remaining solution in the sink. Wipe on a paper towel when finished. Cleaning Hardened Paint Brushes.

Haven't any of you had any professional training at all?

I don't want to steal your thunder Kelly, but this is not Best Practice.

Don't ever put paint thinner into plastic. It will melt most kinds. Why risk a mistake? Old glass salsa jars exist for brush cleaning. label one, put some glass marbles like the flower arranging ones into the bottom to work the brush against. (Plain, not coated with shiny stuff. It'll dissolve) Trying to clean oil based paints out of brushes by just stirring them around doesn't work. If you're desperate a crumpled piece of window screen will work too but it's hard on bristles so this is not a default. Paint thinner is very flammable and an ugly toxin so you want to keep it stingy and the stuff needs to go to Hazardous Waste Disposal. Wipe those brushes really well!

If you're doing fine arts painting go buy a proper brush cleaning pot. A big size one would be good for pro house painters. Solvent sits in it for weeks and it has a sieve to work the bristles over. Paint solids drop below it. The top keeps fumes in and evaporation almost nill over weeks. Minimal exposure, clean brushes. Now wash them! I wash up to thirty brushes a day in the studio; it's just doing the dishes.

Do NOT use a surfactant/ detergent 'soap'. Use a real soap, a chemically designated soap, with oil or fat in it. You can put it on a cellulose sponge and work the brushes across it to work up a lather, or just work them against your palm. If you use bar soap swipe the brushes across it. The soap cuts the oil, and the fat base conditions the bristles.If you wiped out the paint and rinsed in thinner properly there's very little to wash out. More like a post gym shower then wrestling gunk. You don't want paint in a sink drain or on the back patio. Rinse well. If you do this correctly you'll get to wear brushes out instead of throwing them away. And bristles are chosen for this exposure so they'll get better. It's just like washing your hair. Squeeze out the water and shape them, air dry.

This works for synthetic brushes too. Do not leave soap in the bristles as it will contaminate your paint next time and make a bad paint film. As for exotic paints like epoxy? Yes, use nitrile gloves and a respirator! Outside. But if the stuff is hydrocarbon based a fat soap should work too. Acetone on brushes will kill them fast, so make sure thats a really Best Practice. Again- a soap may work better. Most bristles need the conditioning.

If your brushes start to get that gunky icky feeling, soaking them in that inexpensive liquid oil soap from the grocery store (Also best for regular washing after painting) is like a spa treatment. Leave them in for two or three days. It's magic! Paint in the ferules is a ruined brush, but as regular maintenance this is amazing. I have ten year old mongoose thats still sweet. Apple free software. I also paint a lot.

Do not use soap on watercolor brushes. Just rinse.

This is the method professional painters use; It keeps solvent use to an absolute minimum. Reusing a cup or 12 ounces of thinner instead of blowing through gallons of it reduces exposure and that stuff has lead in it. Among other scary things. Don't use it on skin either. Paint'll fall of in 48 hours if soap or olive oil doesn't get rid of it.

Even if you use a thinner only system like the guys who paint cars using industrial paints, a cleaning pot will use less thinner and reduce your chemical exposure. They can be used in series. You can eyeball them at the big online art supply stores, and I shop at industrial supply so don't think they don't interchange. ;-D I'll try to post instructions for the homemade version.

Cleaning Hardened Paint Brushes

This is a messy way to go. You need a thinner bucket. I don't understand why commercial painters love to fling thinner around, it's a toxin and a fire hazard. Anything you aerosolize, you breathe.

Not being snarky - being concerned for your health. And your pocket book. My iphone store. I get that.

I was trained to clean those brushes after the day by wiping them out, giving a good rinse in a thinner bucket to knock off any solids, and shampooing with Murphy's. Every Day After Painting. There's no reason for a brush to get to this state. The next morning, it's dry and clean and ready to go. You can also knock off any cruddy build up through the day in a thinner bucket. Which is a zinc or steel bucket, with a lid, with a grate inside to run the bristles over. Paint solids fall to the bottom and the thinner can be used until it's exhausted. No breathing micro droplets, none on the skin, and the fire hazard stays contained. Yes, paint thinner is a fire hazard. It comes from the same cracking tower as motor oil and gasoline, it's very dirty stuff. It often contains lead and other nasty things too. You don't want to breathe it.

How To Clean A Hardened Paint Brush

You can also give most brushes a 72 hour soak in Murphys as a maintenance deep clean. Every six months or so. This can also rescue brushes you've already trashed. No scraping or grinding needed if you clean up every day though. That's time out of your life. Go watch a game! The five minutes to wash brushes is worth having a clean dry well conditioned tool at hand the next morning. But a Saturday afternoon? Nah.

I'm trained as a portrait painter, but I renovate houses too. And I have a brush fetish, I have over a thousand high quality ones. I clean them all the same way, studio or house. They're all in great shape. Washing daily is not a problem, the oil in oil soap is a great conditioner for natural hairs. Just let them air dry out in the open, they could mildew in a closed container. Takes them inside in freezing weather. Love them and they'll love you back.