I,m shutting down Theworkshop.

No No, It doesn't mean I'm going to be selling off any of my tools.

Sometime next year, we are moving to Holland. My daughter lives there we have travelled back and forth now for over ten years several time a year to visit Christmas, New year,  birthdays etc we've got to love it there, Our last but one visit was to a funeral of  Edwin mother who lost her fight for life after a very long struggle to stay with us all, this sorta brought things to ahead.

While there my daughter says, mum if you or dad, were ever in that position I just could not get that sort of time off work to be with you near the end, why not,  yea you guessed the rest, Still in the early stages as yet ref the move itself,  but it not just the house to consider here the workshop a lifetime of bits and pieces, they all add up to a lot of items that have to be sorted which simply cannot be left till the last minute,  Keepers, things to pass on to number one son, and things I have to be very brutal and have to dispose of.

I decided to make a start with removal quotes (ouch).  I now have a load of packing boxes made a start on sorting and packing all items that are not being used regularly.

Oh dear why did I keep all this stuff,  I must have been nuts, Anyway  this is where I found my first big mistake, I  retired a few years ago from my jobbing days.  I have a painters trade storage bin for my wet painting brushes to which I have not touched for several years.

I had from time to time replace the bottles of brush mate inside the bin  to keep the brushes wet and soft, but yep  you guessed it I  had completely forgotten to replace the brush mate liquid and the brushes were rock hard, all ten of them, now feeling very sick,  very very stupid mistake to make and it is going to be very costly to replace those brushes.

The inside of the bin was all furred up and needed cleaning out, I also had to replace the wick, and base pad these should have been replaced a long time ago, it was time to bit the bullet and source new accessories.

I bought a new wick, a new base pad, and a couple of bottles of brush mate. I was going to purchase a new set of brushes, but, remembering how much those brushes cost me,  Hamilton brushes are expensive.

 

I inquired about any possible chemicals that just may be available to restore my brushes, might make me feel better,  I was recommended the following. Hmm, never tried it before, well, ten brushes one bottle, not enough.  I bought four bottles, well at least cheaper than a new set of new brushes, if it works that is, might at least be able to  salvage some of my brushes hopefully. Well, surprise surprise it  does exactly what it shows on the bottle it  not only cleans the brushes from being rock hard it also took all the colour out of the wooden handles right back to bare wood.

I left the brushes in the mixture for about four days completely submerged, a mistake  but never mind it did the job.

Each time I checked  I pressed the brush hard till the bristles started to bend pressing more allowing the mixture to penetrate further into the brush softening the bristles as the instruction on the bottle.

This is the second batch of five brushes stood in white spirits all rock hard.  They were all stood in the spirits for over a week but to no avail.

The lower photo shows the first patch of five brushes after they had been washed out with water,  as per instruction  I must say I never thought they would come up so clean and free of paint. As can be seen no paint left on the handles at all

 

If you look carefully you can still see on the tip of the bristle on a couple of the brushes   traces of paint, I'll give those a second soaking in a fresh batch of the solution.

Next batch of the dirty brush as seen here in for a few days soaking.

In the meantime  remove the first batch ( above) from there second  soaking  and wash out with water, after first  wrap  the brush in paper towels   and leave to dry in the sun if you can, the reasoning behind the paper towel is to soak up the water from the bristles while there wrapped tight in the paper  keeping the shape  to the paintbrush bristles so the ends don't open up  with bristles poking out all over the place.

Brushes drying in the afternoon sun.

The following day I stood the brushes on end to drain any fluid left inside the stock of the brush and to give a final drying in the sun. Here is why I wrapped them in paper to help keep there shape while the brushes dried in the afternoon sun, second pic first batch of brushes dried, the last pic showing all brushes now cleaned. 

Now finally that all brushes are cleaned at last and it going to be quite a long time before I get to use them probable mid to the end of next year. I have decided to store them in the tin but this time keep an eye on them, I'm going to try an experiment and try to slow down the evaporation of the brush mate chemicals escaping from the tin by placing over the top of the tin before I replace the lid a layer of tin foil to help seal in the fumes from the brush mate as seen here. 

As can be seen from this last photo The brush mate bottle is now in place with the wick inside the bottle which over the next few days will drain the bottle dry probable by next weekend I will have to replace this bottle which I already have the second one waiting as seen in the photo. The pad that the wick is attached to will slowly suck up the brush mate liquid and slowly release the chemical inside the tin to help keep your used brushes very soft and stop them from going hard.

Don't do what I did, I completely forget them,  that was quite a costly mistake, but,  never mind well worth doing seeing all my brushes except two are all Hamilton perfections if I had had to replace them, Ouch.

Hope you all enjoyed.

Oh yea, it is now back to the packing.