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Hey all

So, I have a number of Citadel Drybrushes. They all still have paint in them, despite rinsing after use, and are getting a bit stiff and thus likely to scratch paintwork.

Besides buying new ones what can I do to rescue them or at the very least soften them up so they don't scratch paintwork?

I have available to me right now IPA 99.9%, Rustins Cellulose Thinners, Gunze Self Levelling Thinners, water, washing up liquid, and probably somewhere some bleach of some sort.

Thanks in advance.

Artist's soap found in art supply stores.

if they are synthetic the IPA would be best for removing dry paint.
Though not recommended if they are natural bristles the IPA followed by a good brush soap wash has saved (to some degree) a few of my abused brushes.

Marco's YouTube post might help too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SJORV5kMJ0&list=PLAM3lWHaq5H0T8EpXfFQ-_yXM194SyHga&index=5

 maxwin wrote:
if they are synthetic the IPA would be best for removing dry paint.
Though not recommended if they are natural bristles the IPA followed by a good brush soap wash has saved (to some degree) a few of my abused brushes.

According to the Games Workshop webstore the dry brushes are...

... a light ox hair and synthetic blend of bristles for stiffness and durability.

I use green stuff world brush cleaner, it’s very good and you can leave it in the bristles for a while to dissolve the paint and rinse with water.

I use the GW dry brushes. I think they are very good. But in my experience they have a limited life time because they are so densely packed with bristles if you get paint up there, which is unavoidable eventually, then it’s hard to get it out. There is another recent thread on here discussing artist opus dry brushes and many people suggest using cheap makeup brushes if you find replacing GW brushes to expensive


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I use green stuff world brush cleaner, it’s very good and you can leave it in the bristles for a while to dissolve the paint and rinse with water.

I use the GW dry brushes. I think they are very good. But in my experience they have a limited life time because they are so densely packed with bristles if you get paint up there, which is unavoidable eventually, then it’s hard to get it out. There is another recent thread on here discussing artist opus dry brushes and many people suggest using cheap makeup brushes if you find replacing GW brushes to expensive. Or just because they do a good job apparently

Drybrushes should be able to be salvaged with some of the techniques above. However, for any brush once you get paint up into the ferrule it is starts to splay the bristles, it is pretty much done - toss it!

When brushes reach this stage, they're only being salvaged - you're not reverting the damage that's already been done to the bristles.

Soak the brush in near boiling water to loosen the gunk. Then dip them in thinner for a few minutes at a time then mechanically scrub them. Swipe them against old dish sponge.

If you use your current dish sponge there's a high probability your mother/spouse/significant other will rip you a new one.

I just have acknowledge that I am not very good at looking after brushes. I think I ruined a new one in a bout 2 hours of painting by being careless. On of the reasons why I use synthetic brushes a lot.

How???

My Rosemary & Co brushes have lasted me a couple of years (OK, of fairly intermittent painting) so far and are still perfect...

Just being really careless paint inks and getting it up into the bad place

We’ve got a new baby so my windows of opportunity to paint are small so I’m trying to be quicker and not paying attention to what I’m doing

More haste less speed is very true in mini painting

Thanks guys. I've just purchased some of that Green Stuff World stuff. Hoping it works on the dried on paint.

The drybrushes aren't totally caked in paint, it's just that you can still see there is paint there (one brush currently looks green, another blue, another black etc. etc.) and it tends to mix with the next paint I drybrush, which is not helpful.

Just want to get the brushes back to a clean state and hopefully not "scratchy". Rather than having to shell out on new drybrushes.

I picked up my number 6 that I use for priming and realised it not washed it, I let the GSW cleaner soak in the bristles for about 15 mins and it worked great. It’s only the size of a Vallejo dropper but it lasted me ages. Although it can be hard to get in the Uk sometimes so I recently order 2 lots

OK, I just want to thank you guys, in particular mrFickle, for your advice.

I sat and cleaned my drybrushes on Saturday, whilst waiting for some paint to dry.

Here's what I did if anyone is interested -

I started with the Green Stuff World brush cleaner, it wasn't doing much so I tried using 99% IPA to soften up the paint. That still wasn't doing much very quickly so I got impatient and used Rustins Cellulose Thinner to soften up the paint and that worked much better although I had to watch out for clumping of the paint as it kind of turned to "jelly" as it was coming off. Once I had most of the paint off each brush I used the Green Stuff World brush cleaner as a final step to remove even more paint and soften up the brushes.

Seems to have worked great as they're now fairly clean, not 100% brand new, but clean enough, and they're softer than they were before I cleaned them. Should be quite usable again.


The only downside is that I paid £6-£7 (including postage) for the Green Stuff World brush cleaner, and I think I used most of the 17ml bottle cleaning the drybrushes - so it's not exactly economical imho. But now I have the drybrushes in a serviceable state again I can try to keep them that way.

Sounds like there was a lot of dried paint on those brushes, it shouldn’t be that much effort to clean them. The GSW cleaner is a small bottle but if you use it after each session and don’t let paint dry in the brush it will last you a long time. Remember that it’s a brush cleaner and not a paint remover. I don’t think IPA would be good for your round brushes especially if they are kolinsky. The citadel dry brushes are think and hardy. Kolinsky is fragile and you don’t want to dissolve the glued that is holding the brush in place.