W&N#7 brushes....best brush cleaner???

[Evil Bones]

i just went and bought W&N #7 brushes
and am wondering what is the best cleaner - conditioner to maintain these brushes??

i got lucky the local artstore had brushes and i bought a #2,1,0,00,000 for $80 US:bouncy:

cheers:beer::beer:

 

[Modderrhu]

Pantene PRO-V Repair & Protect shampoo and conditioner.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Evil Bones
i just went and bought W&N #7 brushes
and am wondering what is the best cleaner - conditioner to maintain these brushes??

If you want to be really careful:
rinse thoroughly and often during painting;
use a double-bath system so the final rinse is always in very clean water;
every now and then - not after every use - wash them with shampoo, soap or dishwashing liquid (almost no difference in how the brushes last IME);
apply hair conditioner and put aside, leaving the conditioner in until you next use the brush, then rinse out before using paint.

Originally posted by Evil Bones
i got lucky the local artstore had brushes and i bought a #2,1,0,00,000 for $80 US:bouncy:

Don\'t cry but: http://www.dickblick.com/zz050/02/

Now what could you have bought with that 40 bucks? Course you did have the advantage of being able to hand-pick the brushes, to help trying to avoid a lemon.

Einion

 

[DaRat]

Use Master\'s Brush Cleaner & Restrorer (or Preserver, I forget which) after every painting session. Apply a bit of hair conditioner after the brush is clean to restore oils. Rinse off, and then use a bit of the Master\'s soap to shape the brush.

Periodically, you also might want to use some of the Winsor & Newton Brush Cleaner and Preserver for deep cleaning. The Winsor & Newton is a liquid in which you soak the brush.

Whatever you do, stay away from dishwashing liquid since dish soap will strip away the oils in the brush.

 

[usurpator]

Im with darat here! no dishwasher but master\'s!!!
BTW havbe you tried vallejo or escoba\'s brushes? better than series7 and much cheaper

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by DaRat
Whatever you do, stay away from dishwashing liquid since dish soap will strip away the oils in the brush.

And what do you think soap does? Anyway, that\'s why you condition immediately after; and as I said I\'ve noticed no difference. Have you tried any direct side-by-side comparisons?

Or let me put it another way: what kind of lifespan do you get from your brushes? I\'ve used dishwashing liquid in my rinsing water for the last decade at least and my brushes outlast nearly all my friends\' :bouncy:

BTW, I\'d suggest getting a hold of some pH strips, you might want to check the alkalinity of what you\'re leaving in your brush while you store it!

Einion

 

[DaRat]

Originally posted by Einion

Originally posted by DaRat
Whatever you do, stay away from dishwashing liquid since dish soap will strip away the oils in the brush.

And what do you think soap does? Anyway, that\'s why you condition immediately after; and as I said I\'ve noticed no difference. Have you tried any direct side-by-side comparisons?

Dishwashing liquid is designed to strip away oils (grease) since that\'s what you want when you\'re washing dishes. Regular soap is similarly bad for washing hair.

Brush soap is more akin to shampoo where there is more of a balance between washing away oils and leaving them on the hair.

The reason that you\'re getting more brush life than your friends is that you are using hair conditioner to put oils back.

When I started painting again, I ruined a couple of Reaper Kolinsky brushes by using dish soap (and no conditioner): they frizzed out and were near useless after a couple of months. When I picked up my Winsor & Newtons, I started using Master\'s Brush Cleaner, and my brushes are still going strong after 17 months of use. I did eventually start using hair conditioner on the Winsor & Newtons after about 8 months when they started getting limp, but the degradation was nowhere near as bad as with the dish soap.

 

[Einion]

Fair enough, but I think you might have missed this (emphasis added):

Originally posted by Einion
every now and then - not after every use - wash them with shampoo, soap or dishwashing liquid (almost no difference in how the brushes last IME);

Originally posted by DaRat
Use Master\'s Brush Cleaner & Restrorer (or Preserver, I forget which) after every painting session.

Einion

 

[Tinweasel]

I swear by Mona Lisa Pink Soap, available at most craft/art supply stores:
http://www.houstonart.com/pinksoap.asp

It\'s brush cleaner, preserver, and conditioner all in one product... \'nuff said. I wash my brushes under running room-temp water after every session, and then add a little of the stuff in afterwards to condition on occasion.

It\'s even restored shape and snap to my remaining 15+ year-old, crappy \"use it for everything including painting glue on\" brushes that I used to clean enamels from with mineral spirits - granted, there\'s not many hairs on those, but what\'s left looks and works great! I\'ve been using it on all my brushes, both Kolinsky sable and synthetic, for the nearly two years I\'ve been back at painting and it\'s amazing the amount of paint (even dried stuff) that you can drag out of the hairs and ferrule with Pink Soap from a brush that otherwise looks \"clean.\" (I generally try to not let paint dry on \'em and not let it work up to the ferrule, but stuff happens, ya know...)

I also generally add a few drops to my brush water, which seems to help as a preventative measure.


As an added bonus, the conditioner and/or magic ingredients in it leaves my brush-cleaning fingers nice and soft, for whatever that\'s worth.

 

[Einion]

Originally posted by Tinweasel
I swear by Mona Lisa Pink Soap, available at most craft/art supply stores:
http://www.houstonart.com/pinksoap.asp

FWIW I\'ve read a few recommendations of this by artists on other sites too. I certainly like the idea of it more than The Masters for cleaning our type of brushes.

Einion