Care and Feeding Of Paintbrushes
Makes Detailing Your Model Easier

The care and feeding of paint burshes is very important to the eventual final apperance of your models and provides you with tools that are ready-to-use for the next job.

After you've used your brush or brushes, they need to be claned as soon as possible. Follow this 7-step process for best results: 1. In your work space, have the surface lined with scrap paper. Use porous paper, not coated stock like magazines. Have a container of water. Use a container that will not be used for food or drink again. Have a rag that will eventually get used up and thrown away.

2. Regardless of what kind of paint you’ve used, squeeze the brush into a rag to get out as much paint as you can. This saves effort on later steps, and extends the useful life of oil-based brush cleaners.

3. If you’ve used oil-based paint, drop the brush in cleaner. Your cleaner can be mineral spirits, naphtha, turpentine, Stoddard solvent, kerosene or gasoline.

4. If you’ve used water-based paint, drop the brush in water.

5. After a minute or so, take the brush out of the cleaner and dab it at an angle onto a rag or scrap paper. Dip it back in the cleaner and dab again, pressing out paint color. Repeat four or five times.

6. For both oil- and water-based paints, now go to your soap-and-water cleanup. Dip the brush in full-strength dish detergent. Dab onto paper and see more paint color come out. Dip the brush in water and repeat until you cannot get any more color out of the brush.

7. Train bristles and allow brushes to dry upright.