How to Clean Gloss Paint Off Brushes With White Spirit

1. Hi Folks

   This may be a silly question but what is the best way to clean and restore your brushes when you have been painting gloss or satinwood paint? I'm using the old faithful jam jar with white spirit at the moment followed by loads of fairy liquid and hot water....is there anything better nowadays?

   Cheers John

2. that is about the only way if you clean them after every time you use them,i use a vapour box to store mine until i need it again, you can buy these at any dulux centre or a good builders merchant, they are made as a twenty brush or a four brush if you don't need to store many,hope this has been of some help.

   brush it on.

3. "Brushmate" has changed my life!

   About 95% of my oilbase work is in white so I have my U/coat, gloss and eggshell brushes in one section and they haven't seen white spirit in about 6 months. The other section I use for colours but clean them out at the end of the job - except for black which crops up occasionally.

   It not only saves cleaning, the vapour seems to loosen up the paint - you know how your brush can get a bit "tired" by lunchtime, and hour in the box and its light and easy to use again. Whereas before I'd try and save any touching up till the end to avoid using a clean brush, now I have no problem, just grab a brush for the smallest dod and back in the box again.

   Saves me hours every week - worth every penny.

4. Ha cheers 54Aardvark didn't notice there were two threads the same - far too early on a sunday morning! Johnboyz100 please also see this thread:

   http://www.screwfix.com/talk/thread.jspa?threadID=82787&tstart=0

   

5. Personally I buy fairly cheap brushes from my trade outlet and use them for a fairly short time. If I use dark colours I tend to use them then throw then because it takes too much time and effort to clean them out enough to use them again with pale colours. Time is money and the more time spent faffing about cleaning them and using loads of white spirit (even the stuff I recycle) makes it not worth bothering. The Brush Mate is OK for whites but it's not worth bothering keeping coloured brushes in there as you don't know when you are likely to use them again for the same colour.

   I never clean oil based paint from brushes with soap and water

6. Many thanks for all your advice lads, looks like ill be buying a Brushmate asap. From what you have said it sounds an excellent piece of kit, not only for keeping the brushes in good condition but also from saving me from a boll*cking from the wife for leaving the white paint marks in her sink at night lol....thanks again John

7. Could I carry on with this thread and ask about cleaning rollers and trays?
   I don't mind chucking away roller sleeves (just a waste of time cleaning them out!) but I like to keep the trays. I've tried lightly spraying a new tray with WD40 to stop paint sticking to it but doesn't really work well. Or cling film? Any ideas?

8. Just let the emulsion dry right out each time. After several uses you will get a thick skin that just peels off leaving the tray as good as new. Nice job to do when you are rained off

9. Just let the emulsion dry right out each time. After
   several uses you will get a thick skin that just
   peels off leaving the tray as good as new. Nice job
   to do when you are rained off

   lol I am sad enough to clean mine out every time. Quick tip - use a stiff nail brush In the past I used to wrap the tray in tin foil but I got jacked off with the roller cage tearing it so I always ended up cleaning the tray out anyway. Still use foil method if ever I'm rollering oil based.

   Snoyly, as for chucking rollers, thats fine for the tat they sell in B&Q! But for Purdy etc, no chance (far less splatter & the sleeves don't "walk" off the cage like the B&Q jobbies). Well worth hunting one of these down, it's a pretty decent tool:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVtDHRlPxYc

10. Can I add to this question - should I be using straight white spirit, or can I water it down?

    Also, can I re-use white spirit after I have cleaned a brush, or should I be using new spirit each time?

11. Brushmate best thing invented since the wheel, always pop them in the box even if stopping for a cup of tea or to move dust sheets!

    Cleaning rollers of water based paint, leave them in a bucket of water till you have three or four then squeeze them out and bung them in the washing machine with a dust sheet to stop them clanking around.

    teabreak

12. d2180s
    On the question on using white spirit straight or watered down............ Are you drinking the stuff or using it to clean brushes ??

    If using to clean brushes always use neat, straight from the bottle.......if drinking... well just don't !

    If your painting often using same colour and oil based, usually white, then yes deffo recycle the white spirit between jobs. Store the used white spirit in a screw top bottle and use for the initial clean next time. After using the recycled stuff, the brushes will need another clean in a smaller quantity of  new white spirit
    <address>A final rinse in some warm soapy water followed by a rinse in clean water will do the job (although some will disagree with this)</address>

14. ^^^^Funny. As long as yer ahss knows about it.

    Mr. HandyAndy - Really

16. It's phonetical.

    Mr. HandyAndy - Really

18. Have you never heard the expression, 'Don't know your ahss from your elbow' ?

    Mr. HandyAndy - Really

19. never had it said to me have you

20. No, but I've said it to a few people!

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How to Clean Gloss Paint Off Brushes With White Spirit

Source: https://community.screwfix.com/threads/best-way-to-clean-brushes.92288/

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