According to the popular questions from private messages that mainly concern the choice of the best paint brushes and how to clean and take care of paintbrushes after using them, this tutorial will focus on restoring our old paintbrushes.
In our daily life, we tend to spend a lot of money on paint brushes when building dioramas, especially a big project for our mismanagement, such as forgetting to clean paint brushes or cleaning them too fast or too frequently. Therefore, these situations will be prevalent: the paintbrushes are just dried up and becoming very hard, kind of splits the bristles upright, the bristles are like white and sticking out.
Even though we sometimes do clean it out well, it still hands up in some strange way. The reason is that the acrylic paints that we use get stuck in there so that you might see all the paint come out, the binder gets stuck in there, and then your brush gets the bristles separated. At this time, several methods can be provided for you to restore your paintbrushes rather than throwing away and buying new ones. Therefore, the following examples and steps listed will demonstrate the specific information of fixing them up, restoring them to their proper way. Undoubtedly, suitable solutions can save both time and money.
(1) Cleaning the paintbrushes
First of all, we need to prepare a bit tiny electric stove and a pot. And then, we should take distilled white vinegar and put them into our pot. Please remember to put a good amount if you have a couple of paintbrushes to fix up. Next, we need to turn on the stove and bring this to a boil. At this time, you can see it is boiling. Upon boiling, we will turn off the heat and pour this into a jar or something clear to observe how effects the paintbrushes and the paint will have in them. When we put it in a short mason jar, the paintbrushes with bubbles coming off can be seen through the glass as we dip.
The bubbles are working because the white distilled vinegar dissolves the paint and the medium inside the paint. What’s more, the acrylic paints that we use on our dioramas are just pigment in an acrylic medium. After we make sure that the paintbrushes are kept down for a long time and are already becoming very soft, we need to loosen that all up.
It is worth noting that we need to move the paintbrushes around and dip them rather than keeping them in there. The reason is that the vinegar will go into the ferrule of the paintbrush. This is the part that contains the glue that keeps your bristles together. And then the paintbrushes, which were hard as a rock, are actually moving around now. We need to continue and make sure they are all dissolved, and the phenomenon that bits of dried acrylic paint coming off into the vinegar can prove it. At this time, these brush soles are nice and soft. In other words, due to soaking in vinegar, all the dry acrylic paint can be taken out of it.
(2) Brushing out the little chunks
However, the particular circumstances will enjoy no exception. If a small part comes off, we need to get as close as possible to the place that meets the metal and the bristle where there is glue, and then wash all the dry paint off the brush. If the brush is as hard as a stone and the acrylic paint has been dry for months with no effect soaking in boiling vinegar, there is no need to drink it in again. With the second step, we need to use a wire brush to brush out all the little chunks. With the brushes fresh out of the boiling vinegar, a plate can bear the brushes for cleaning.
For example, the bristles of a paintbrush were very tough in the beginning, and then we can move them around after soaking in white vinegar. But there is also some white paint on it, and the vinegar in the jar is murky. These tiny white specks are the paint coming out so that all the acrylic medium inside the paint mix with the vinegar. Such a situation can be seen as an awful experience because all those little spots of acrylic paint can be seen getting stuck in there with a lot of stuff coming out. To clean these brushes, we need to dry them and wash them with warm and soapy water. After removing all the bits with a wire brush, the paintbrushes are black, the actual bristles.
(3) Restoring the paintbrushes
Therefore, the expectation of restoring them will arise only if we remember the shape of the brush, and we can realize it if the following requirements are satisfied: the bristles are loose and stick out. However, with the wrong way to clean the brush and reshape the bristles, all the excess gunk or vinegar will go back into the ring of paintbrushes and erode the glue inside so that more bristles will be lost. At this time, the following method of restoring paintbrushes will be valuable.
Restoring the brushes can make them valuable and adaptable in various and diversified situations. If we want them to be friendly, soft, and feel like brand new, the things we need to do are hydrate the bristles in case they get dry out and stiff. After rinsing the brush, we should put some baby oil in the bottom of the jar and soak the brush in the oil to remove as many spare parts as possible. One thing that should be remembered is that don’t get it wet; give it a quick dip. And then, we should rotate it and move it to the side before reshaping the bristles with our fingers. Now we can see the brush is clean, friendly, soft, smooth, straight, unpainted in the middle, just perfectly fine as its original shape.
Overall, with these steps, even if the brush is in bad condition, it can still be cleaned, repaired, and used well.—By TheTactical Nerdist