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If using a brush, wipe off paint before cleaning it in white spirit solution


Housesparrow

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As a kid, it never occurred to me to try wipe off excessive paint from a brush before start cleaning it in a small jar of white spirit. Simply putting the used brush and then sloshing it around in a jar of white spirit usually turned the content of the jar dark, eventually dirtying up the jar really good over time.

At some point, I learned to wipe that paint off as good as I could.

A quick dip with the brush into a jar of white spirit helps greatly, for wiping off the excessive paing with paper towel (otherwise it won't be easy to wipe off the paint with a paper towel), before carefully cleaning it in a jar of white spirit, twirling the brush against the glass to dislodge the small amount of paint left.

Heh, now that I think about it, maybe I am the weird one, having rolled the brush part of a brush against the glass in a jar of white spirit in all these years. :D

I like cleaning the brushes completely, so that paint doesn't get stuck at the inner most part of the brush hairs.

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I think warm should be fine, I mean we are talking enough temperature to expand the metal appreciably to cause any problem.

Also modern glues may be more resilient, although, I think, the general premise stands. :winkgrin:

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Is that before or after the crockery?

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I think I've alway wiped the brush against the side of the container- just seemed logical to me.

Now days I mostly use acrylics and have my clean up water in a one litre container that has raised 1 ml graduation marks on the inside. To clean, I dip the brush in the water and gently run it up along these lines for a "washboard" effect and it works well. After that I gently roll the brush on a paper towel to see if any paint is left; if so, I repeat the process. I dry the brush first on a piece of scarp cloth then put it in a spiral brush holder to dry. I store my brushes in a "custom" brush holder which is simply a block of wood with holes drilled in it fhe size of the handles.

Depending on how offen I use a brush but probably ever other month (or if a brush won' t clean completely) I give them all a deep cleaning. I start with running them warm water, sometimes with just a drop of dish soap (washing up liquid) in a cup on the side, followed by Winsor & Newton Brush Cleaner and Restorer then a thorough rinse and air dry.

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