How to Clean a Used Paintbrush

If you do any home improvement projects, the odds are you will use paint. To avoid buying a new paintbrush for every project, you will need to reuse your paintbrush. However, if you do not properly clean your paintbrush, the paintbrush will either ruin your next project, or become unusable.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Used Paintbrush
• Newspaper
• Water hose
• Empty Bucket

1. If the paint on the paintbrush has dried, fill the bucket with water and soak the paintbrush in the water until it has loosened. If the paint is still wet, skip to the next step.

2. Take the used paintbrush and run it over the newspaper several times, removing any excess paint.

3. After removing the excess paint, turn on the water hose. Holding the paint brush in one hand, spray it with the hose, forcing the paint out of the brush.

4. Continue until the water running from the brush runs clear.

5. After the water runs clear, sling the water from the brush with quick flicking motions.

6. After you can wipe the brush on some clean newspaper without it leaving wet streaks, you can store the brush with your paint equipment until you need it again.

Tips & Warnings

• Be patient; sometimes it will take a while for the paint to come out of the brush.
• To make the process go faster, hold the water hose right against the brush's bristles.
• Clean the paintbrush where you won't mind a little amount of paint getting on the ground. [i.e.: NOT in a garden or in the middle of your perfect lawn]