One of the items on my list was a replacement "brush bath." Not sure what this was called originally as I've long ago lost both the instructions and the label, but it was a kidney shaped translucent plastic tub 5-6 inches high with a lid which had two oval soft rubber grommets. These would grip any size of paint brush handle so you could suspend them in the solvent overnight for a really efficient clean. Added to that the bottom of the bath had a couple of dozen tall plastic spikes that you drew the brush across to dislodge the paint and help the solvent reach through all the bristles.
I've had this thing for about 5 years and it was just about the best gadget I ever bought, but for some reason this project has completely knackered it - the spikes bent, the grommets went slack and the insides became totally gunged up with old paint - so I decided to bin it and buy a replacement.
Except there were no replacements to be found.
I worked myself up about this while in the warehouse, thinking about how no-one probably cleans paint brushes any more. They must buy new for every project. (This is certainly the approach our bathroom fitters took because I found all the paint brushes, not to mention rollers and buckets, in the skip after they'd left). This kind of waste really hacks me off (especially when I'm in the kind of mood to be easily hacked off). Makes me think about my old Dad, who as far as I could work out only had a single set of paintbrushes his whole life and looked after them, as he did with all his tools, religiously. After forty years' use they were still as clean and springy as the day he bought them, and had developed that patina of well-used things where they almost become like family friends and using them takes on a pleasure of its own. Like opening up the box of familiar Christmas decorations every December and remembering each one as you take it out and hang it on the tree.
OK maybe I'm getting a little poetic there, but the point is there was no disposable society for my Dad - he looked after his stuff and he brought me up to do the same. Here I was trying to follow his example and bloody B&Q don't sell my brush bath any more!
I needn't have worried. As always, Google is your friend. Although I couldn't find exactly the same model, that's probably because the last five years have seen some developments in brush cleaning technology for the home decorator, so now I have a choice:
The Paint Brush Tub from Stanley, available online at a retail price of just over six quid, plus VAT and postage, holds up to six brushes at a time. Not many details on the first link I found, or indeed on any of the other links. They've all borrowed the same text from each other: "Paint brush tub designed for storing and cleaning up to 6 brushes." One is left to guess at the method, probably similar to what I had before.
The alternative is the Brushdoctor. Not only a much snappier title, this device hits my techie buttons too. It uses a patented method of mixing air and water to "increase the surface tension of the water" (cod science alert!), thus enabling it to suck up more paint from the brush. It does have the environmentally attractive feature that the dirty water (or solvent) is contained and can be disposed of safely, but then so did Stanley's tub.Basically you pour the solvent in, insert the brush (looks like a similar grommet mechanism as before) to suspend it in the solution and then switch on the attached battery powered pump to inject air into the container making the cleaning solution foam up and penetrate around the bristles, giving a much more thorough cleaning experience.
A little more expensive at £19.99, and it may prove harder to clean out between uses, but I think it's the one for me!
1 comment:
Now there's a memory you've just dragged up. My dad always soaked his brushes in solvent in an old paint can. The brushes all had spatters of paint of all kinds of colours, from walls to exterior house and fence painting projects. He also had long thin strips of wood for stirring paint that had different layers of colours too.
Post a Comment