How to clean paint brushes

Once you have used your paint brush you have three options, option one is to simply throw it away. This is costly and if you have spent out on a good brush it is a serious waste of money! Option two, store the brush in a brush storage container or similar. This is good if you will be using the same brush with the same colour again in the future. Option three, clean your paint brush.

Depending if you are a professional painter and decorator or a DIYer and how much you have spent on your brushes will determine what you will do with your brushes. For professional painters we like to look after our brushes as we tend to buy good quality brushes that aren’t cheap so keeping them for as long as possible requires they are looked after and cleaned out.

Cleaning your brushes

If you are using water based paints then all you need is some water and soap and maybe a brush comb. Once you have finished with it and ready to clean the brush, get as much out of the brush as you can by wiping it on the edge of the paint can. Then run the brush under warm water, have the bristles facing down so the paint runs out of the bristles rather than up them and into the ferrule where it can dry and go hard.

Once the worst is washed out you can use a little soap to help wash any colour out of the bristles. Once you have done this you can use a brush comb to remove any stubborn and dried paint for the bristles, then give it a final rinse and shake out the water.

You should now store the brush either in it’s original packaging or wrapped in kitchen towel to help keep all the bristles straight, ready for it’s next use.

If you are using oil based paints, you should start the same way and remove as much paint as possible, then use a brush cleaner or white spirit to wash the brush out in, you may have to use clean brush cleaner to make sure all the paint and colour is removed. You can then treat the brush as you would one you have used in water based paints, so wash in warm soapy water, use a brush comb if required and store in its original packaging or paper towel.

Storing brushes

If you are going to use your brush again in the not too distant future you can buy a brush storage container, there are several on the market. By using these storage containeryou can quickly and easily come back to your brushes, they will still be soft, in the colour you want and ready to go. So they are well worth the investment if you use your brushes a lot or are a painter and decorator.

OK, so you’ve been nagged into doing some DIY at the weekend and have to get out your paint brushes, you head of out to the shed to get them, but when you get there and look at the brushes they look as if they have seen better days. The bristles are all splayed out and it looks like it’s have a ‘bad hair day’!

So how could this been avoided?

Simply put you need to store your brushes, and all equipment for that matter, correctly.
When you have done your decorating and have washed your brushes out you need to store them correctly until the next time your ear is bent to do more decorating 🙂

How to store your paint brushes

Once you have finished painting, remove as much paint as you can from the brush by scraping it on the edge of the tin, if your using water-based paints next wash the remaining paint in clean water. If you are using oil-based paints you will need to wash the brushes out in white spirit, turpentine or a brush cleaner before washing in clean water. Once you have ensured you have all the paint out shake the water remaining water out of the bristles. Now take a piece of dry kitchen towel and lay the brush at one edge, now wrap the kitchen towel tightly around the brushes bristles, finally fold the end of the kitchen towel over at the end.

Now you can store you brush away knowing that when you come back to it, your brush will be in good enough condition to use.

A simple but effective way both DIYers and professionals alike can store brushes. Happy decorating!

A review of Dulux Trade Ecosure Undercoat and Gloss

Following on from my last review for TradeXpress, I am doing one this time for Dulux’s Ecosure range. Specifically I am reviewing the Ecosure water-based undercoat and water-based Gloss. Ecosure is Dulux Trade paint that reduces the impact on the environment even further than their standard paints by 30%. This means even lower VOC‘s.

I have never been a big fan of water-based topcoats and have not got on well with them in the past, so was interested to see how things have changed and improved.

Dulux Ecosure Water-Based Undercoat

I have been using water-based undercoat for many years now and I love it and I use it all the time so wasn’t too surprised to see this in the Ecosure range. Preparation is the same as for any other undercoat, i.e. abrade the surface, make sure the surface is sound, clean and dry. I applied the undercoat using a synthetic brush as recommended for this type of paint, and I was pleased with the results, I was using white undercoat and going over a cream colour. Coverage was good, with good opacity, for a strong colour change a second coat is advised.

I was slightly disappointed with the drying time of 6 hours, this obviously depends on the situation you are working in but the undercoat I am use to using only takes 1-2 hours to dry, so I had to leave the undercoat to dry fully overnight. Coming back in the morning the undercoat had dried leaving a good surface to apply the Gloss too.

The coverage is around 16m² which is only slightly under the standard undercoat coverage. The smell, well being a low VOC and water-based paint the smell was low. I know a lot of people hate the smell of oil-based undercoats and Gloss so will be pleasantly surprised by this paint.

Ecosure Water-Based undercoat comes in pure brilliant white but can be colour mixed, it comes in 2.5L and 5L tins, prices are around £27 and £47 respectively and a colour mixing starts at around £30.
The datasheet for Ecosure Undercoat is 528.

Dulux Ecosure Water-Based Gloss

Like I said in my introduction, I’ve never been a big fan of water-based topcoats so was a little dubious about what this Gloss could do. I applied the Gloss over my previously prepared and Ecosure water-based undercoated surface that I had left to dry overnight.

Continue reading Dulux Trade Ecosure