Cleaning resin off brushes.

[tauruck]

You know how you soak your Polyester resin filled brushes in Acetone?.

You don't have to. Get as much of the resin off by scraping it against the side of your container and pull it through an old rag.

Fill a container with a solution of lukewarm water and washing powder and work the brush into that to agitate the liquid.

Leave it for an hour or so and remove. You can wash the brush off with water but it's not neccessary.

This won't work with Epoxy though.

[Stainless1]

Shoot Mikey, I just  buy a box of brushes from harbor freight, cut the bristles to about 3/4 inch, use it and it becomes the test tag... they are cheap... way less than a quart of acetone.
Never tried soap and water... 

[Tman]

Both good tips! I too buy the cheapies!

[tauruck]

I work with Carbon a lot and the brushes are important.

My Polyester supplier sold me brushes as always at the normal price but when they arrived (35 in total) I saw they were made in China.

I wouldn't mind if the quality was the same but they literally fell apart into my work. There's a little nail that holds the sleeve for the bristles and that fell out too. Who uses a nail on plastic?

I don't buy from them anymore.

If a brush loses bristles with the work I do it costs time and money. One hair in a Carbon component sticks out like a sore thumb. I wash the Polly brushes with washing powder because I forget to take them out if I use Acetone.

I do make sure to keep the white Gel Coat brushes away from the rest. Have you ever seen white Carbon fiber parts?. I made some once.

[John Burk]

My friend who works with composite professionally also uses cheap brushes and shortens the bristles and puts superglue along the base of the bristles to keep them in place .

[sofadriver]

why shorten the bristles?

[Peter Jack]

So you can apply pressure and drive the resin through the fibres. I also use a steel roller with a lot of grooves in it to ensure that I'm using the minimum amount of resin with the maximum penetration.

Pete

[sofadriver]

So you can apply pressure and drive the resin through the fibres.

yep!
tried it today. really adds a lot of punch.
also allowed me to slide my matt sideways while doing some detailed stuff.

thanks for the tip.

[tauruck]

It's good to hear that you benefited from the advice.

This stuff can drive you nuts.