hi there,
do you guys use your brushes just once, or do you manage to clean them properly and re-use them?
if so, how do you guys do it?
cheers
Throw them away. When hardened on a brush, the material is no longer hazardous waste. And my workers time is more valuable than a cheap brush.
But what are you going to do with contaminated cleaning solution?
actually, that was my next question
what do you guys do with “used” acetone?
I use brushes only for mould making. I use them only once. I just buy cheap brushes and after one use I throw them away. I dont see the point of cleaning them with acetone. You just waste lot of time and make tons of acetone vapours.
Couldn’t agree more, I used to dick around with cleaning them but it ended up wasting more time than money saved. Now I just buy in bulk online from this place:
Free shipping and no tax, discounts on bulk orders. They always ship my order same day or the next morning. Totally happy with their service.
It’s just amazing what prices you guys get in the States. I pay twice those prices in here!
I usually pay $10 for qty of 36 brushes. I toss them in the trash once used.
Sounds like 1" brushes from Harbor Freight! My tooling guy picks those up if they’re needed.
As already mentioned, using cheap, disposable brushes is the way to go.
If you decide to reuse brushes, and good on you for doing so, use vinegar. It absolutely destroys uncured epoxy without harming brush bristles, clothing, yourself…anything. I haven’t touched acetone in almost a year now that I’ve discovered using vinegar!
I’ll keep my mask on for a bit longer then. I hate vinegar’s smell :eek: !!!
and watch out for metal parts, couldn’t recognize the scissors anymore after a few days 
(at least it was a cheap one 
)
What do you do between layers with the brushes? I am doing wet-lay-ups with quick curing times and in between letting the plies tack up should I just throw away the brush and use a new one every layer or is there a way to preserve the brushes so I can use them for subsequent layers?
It just depends on how “nicely” you want the brush to work. With epoxy wet layup I can use the same brush for the entire laminate, sometimes 20+ layers. The epoxy will stay liquid and the bristles will still be flexible.
With polyester, especially in the summer I can only use a brush for maybe 5 to 10 minutes before it starts getting rubbery and within an hour the bristles are glued together and rigid. In that case I go through a whole box in two days.
I guess it is time for slower polyester then…
On brushes: usually it does not pay to clean them. When throwing htem away, make sure they do not generate a fire in your waste bin.
We have a freezer we put resin in during lunch or the end of the day to stop it going off. The brushes and scrapers are often left in the containers and they don’t cure up. However some of our faster resins don’t last more than a few hours longer in the freezer than out, others can last for days.