Cleaning Up After Painting

Cleaning Up

Quality painting tools are expensive, so it pays to keep your brushes, rollers, and spray equipment in good condition. The first step in tool maintenance is preconditioning them before use. The second step is cleaning them thoroughly afterward.

Precondition natural-bristle brushes by spraying a small amount of nonsilicone spray lubricant on them and working the lubricant into the bristles. This helps keep the natural oils from drying out.

Precondition synthetic bristles by dunking the brush in liquid fabric softener and rinsing. Fabric softener is a surfactant, which makes water-base emulsions (such as latex paints) flow more easily.

All frequently used brushes will profit from periodic reconditioning. Some painters stop to clean their brushes and rollers once every couple of hours. This removes paint that has inevitably begun to set up in brushes and rollers from exposure to the air in the room.

When you've completed the cleanup, dry the brushes and rollers with paper towels and dispose of the towels properly.

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Cleaning brushes: Step 1

Remove excess paint from a brush by scraping it with the edge of a 5-in-1 tool or a brush-comb made specifically for this purpose. If you don't have a metal brush-comb, you can use an old comb with wide teeth or break out every other tooth from a narrow-toothed comb.

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Cleaning brushes: Step 2

Mix 1/2 cup of liquid fabric softener in a gallon of warm water, and soak the brush in this solution for about 15 minutes. Do not use hot water, which can soften the temper of the bristles and ruin the brush. Swish the brush around in the solution periodically.

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Cleaning oil-base paint from brushes

Oil-base paints require petroleum solvents, but cleaning a brush solely with mineral spirits leaves the bristles stiff. Use this three-jar method.

Fill one large jar two-thirds full with mineral spirits, a second jar with a 50-50 mix of mineral spirits and denatured alcohol, and a third with full-strength denatured alcohol.

Scrape off excess paint as shown in step 1 above, swish the brush in jar No. 1 for about 15 seconds, then spin out the excess. Repeat the process in each solution, let the brushes dry, then recondition them as discussed above left. Store them in their original wrappers.

Cleaning brushes: Step 3

Set up a 5-gallon bucket by lining it with a trash bag and cutting a hole in the top. Snap the top on in a couple of places (just to keep it in place) and attach your brush to a brush spinner. Lower the brush into the bucket and spin it dry, then dry any excess with paper towels.

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Cleaning rollers: Step 1

Even when you think a roller cover has exhausted its paint supply, you'll be surprised at how much paint it still holds. Scrape this excess out of the cover with the curved side of a 5-in-1 tool. Let the excess fall into the roller tray and dump the paint into the original paint can.

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Cleaning rollers: Step 2

Soak the roller cover in a fabric-softener solution (see Cleaning Brushes step 2) and rescrape the cover periodically. Remove the cover from the cage and rinse it in water, squeezing the diluted paint into a work sink or bucket. Repeat as necessary.

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Storing paint

Storing paint means finding a way to keep the air out of the container. The easiest way to accomplish this is to add a gasket between the cover and the can. If you originally enclosed your wet can lid in a plastic storage bag, you can use that or you can cut a circle from a heavy-duty trash bag. Spray vegetable oil on one side of the bag and set it on the can, with the lid on top of the plastic. Drape an old rag on top of the can and tap the lid to seat it in the well. Store the can upside down to prevent a skin from forming on the paint and in a room where the temperature consistently stays at about 50 degrees.

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