Saving your Paint Brushes: How to Remove Old Dried Paint and Reshape your Brushes

The other day I was cleaning my painting area when I found this:

I found it under an Ikea shelf thing I use for holding my paints. I assume it had been there for about a month, meaning the paint was nice and hard and bone dry.

My heart cries a little when I ruin a good brush, and my wallet cries a little more. But have no fear, The Master's Brush Cleaner is here! As I have stated in past posts, this cleaner is expensive and unnecessary for daily cleaning. However, desperate times call for desperate measures!

On the internet you can also find people recommending paint thinner as a save option; however, paint thinner will ruin the shape of your brush and will not necessarily remove all of the paint.

Use the following steps when you need to resurrect a ruined brush:

1. Using a small amount of warm water and the Master's Brush Cleaner, work a lather onto the brush.

Note: If the dried paint is all the way down the bristle shaft, do not try to "break" the paint by squishing the bristles down. This will only break the bristles.

2. Using your fingers, work the lather around the bristles and leave the lather on for several hours. This will begin to soften the dried paint.

 3. After at least three hours, rinse the brush using warm water.

As you can see, even after just a few hours, most of the paint is gone. However, there may still be some hard spots left over. If this is the case with your brush, continue to steps 4 and 5.

4. Using the Master Brush Cleaner and warm water, work the brush into a lather again and allow the lather to remain over night.

5. The following day, rinse your brush using warm water and miracles of miracles it is beautiful once more!

Note: You may need to repeat step 4 if your paint brush sin was particularly egregious.

Personally I was shocked at how well this brush's tip retained its shape after such abuse. This is normally not the case. To reshape your brush into a perfect tip continue with the following steps.

Steps to Reshaping a Brush:

1. Once your brush is completely clean, using Master's Brush Cleaner re-lather the bristles and form the bristles into the desired shape.

Note: Because the lather is still very soft, the shaping will not be perfect, but get the tip as close as you can to the original shape.

2. Allow to dry over night.

3. The following day, with the drying lather still on the brush, pinch the tip of the brush into a fine line and reshape the bristles. Do not rinse!

4. Allow lather to completely dry over night.

5. The following day, use warm water to wash the lather off your now perfect brush.

With time all brushes will begin to lose their shape. I reshape my brushes whenever I notice that the tip needs a little pick-me-up. This will condition and extend the life of your brushes.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment. For more about painting check out my main Tips and Techniques page.