Once you have invested
in good painting tools that will last you have a few
years, you will have to maintain them properly for
them to last that long. One of the first things that
you will have to do is to clean it well after
painting. Cleaning and removing paint from a
paintbrush, roller and a paint pad is not an easy
task. But here are a few easy tips. Follow them and
you tools will look as good as new once cleaned.
While painting with water based paints, clean
brushes after every two hours and when painting ends.
Remove extra paint from pad and brush using a
brush-cleaning tool with teeth to scrap the paint off.
Make a solution of one gallon of warm water
and ½ a cup of fabric softener. The softener is a wetting
agent, which reduces the surface tension of water when it
dissolves in it, thus helping the paint to dissolve quickly.
Make many gallons of this solution.
Dip the brush or pad into the solution and
move it around while counting till 10. The paint will dislodge
itself from the brush and settle at the bottom of the bucket.
Dry the brush in a paintbrush spinner to
remove water from the brush. Make you own spinner. Take a
5-gallon bucket with a lid. Make an 8-inch hole in the middle
of the lid. Place a plastic trash bag inside the bucket and
replace the lid. Now splatter the brush inside the bucket, the
splatter remains inside the plastic trash bag. Dispose off the
plastic bag.
Do not use dish wash soap to clean brushes.
It will cause the bushing and the bristles to stick together.
After cleaning the brush in the warm water
and fabric softener solution there is no need to rinse it in
water. Repeatedly washing the brush in this solution, allows
the fabric softener to coat the bushing and the bristles,
which allows the paint to flow smoothly from the brush.
Use the same method to clean rollers and
paint pads. Cleaning paint from rollers takes some more time
and a number of dips in the solution. But the end result is
the same.
