Thread: hanging brushes in turps.

I suspend my brushes in their relevant solvents - squirrel mops in meths for shellac and natural bristle brushes in mineral turps for oil-based finishes.

Both types of brushes I use are round, so it's easy to obtain a good seal by punching a suitably sized hole (with a wad punch) in the lid of a jar and suspend the brushes with a loose-fitting, easily removable nail.

For meths/squirrel mops, I find the mid-sized Jalna yoghurt pot to be ideal (sturdy plastic pot with snap-on plastic lid) and for white spirit/bristle brush, I find the small gourmet flavoured peanut tins with the snap-on plastic lids to be perfect.

I made a small clamp (two pieces of wood secured with wingnuts) which I clamp on the handle of my french polishing mob and rest it in a glass jar with metho.

For ordinary paintbrushes I leave it in a bucket of water and squeeze out the water and swirl in a little bit of turps (or water if used for acrylics) prior to use.

Different brushes for different paints and colours so cleaning is never necessary.


Peter.

One of the first things I was shown at Tafe was a "brush keeper" just as has eluded to. A tin or jar with solvent and brushes suspended in the liquid.

For oil based paints it was always turps with linseed oil (stopped the turps evaporating, didn't hurt the paint being used), drill a hole in the handle of the brush so the tip of the brush didn't reach the bottom and the level of the liquid covered the hair to the brush ferrule. Brushes lived there for there whole life (years) always ready to go easy to wipe out and use.

Give the brush a quick wash in turps etc and then wrap it in glad wrap.

Hi,
I just leave them sitting in tin with turps, right next to last weeks newspaper. Paper is used to partially clean brush (keep flipping paper to dry page) and rest of time it sits in the tin. Been doing this for years and my brushes last for yonks.

If it looks like drying I add turps, but rarely does a week go by when I do not use the brush .

cheers
conwood

I do similar to Woodwould - with all my brushes I drill a small hole in the handle about 2" up from the bristles. This lets me slip a nail, screwdriver or whatever is handy through 'em to keep 'em suspended in a jar full of whatever solvent is applicable..

I don't bother with a lid though, as all too often any time I leave the brushes in there for long enough that evaporation becomes a concern I come back to find the glue for the bristles has dissolved and the brushes are useless.

Obviously, I buy cheap chaiwanese brushes. I tend to throw 'em away at the end of the day (cheap, cheap, cheap!) rather than try to clean 'em, but even so I still suspend 'em when I take a break for lunch or decide to sneak some other project in between times...

thankyou kindly for the ideas.

what I've found particularily annoying is when the turps evaporates out. So that linseed oil idea particularily sounds good to me.