13 Paint brush day

   These are old,old toys from our church's toy box, I will have to make a tractor or something to tow these wagons.  

 

The other day I made some wooden bracelets, put two coats of shellac on the bowl I am repairing for 10,000 Villages and painted an assortment of children's toys that have been laying around in the shop for a while.  Also I worked on a couple of scroll saw projects and did a marbling technique on a box for a quartz counter top.  The toys were interesting, the nature of the paint we use on kid's stuff has changed over the years.  The old paint is still glossy after all these year. Now of course we use food safe water based paint,it doesn't have the high gloss that the old stuff had but it is not as toxic. A good trade I think.

    These bracelets were waxed once they were fully sanded.

     Each of those jobs involved painting or finishing in some way and all that finishing means that there are brushes to clean.  By the time I had completed the afternoon's work I had cleaned 13 small paint brushes. Some of the finishes were water based but the shellac needs to be cleaned with alcohol so that is a little more fussy.  After the brushes are cleaned with the wood alcohol they have to be washed with warm soapy water to get the alcohol out of the bristles.

one of my good words.

 In the old days I used throw away brushes, and they are still my choice for many staining jobs.  Now though I have some good brushes which with I apply shellac and acrylic craft paint that are well worth the time and effort to wash them out properly.  When the brushes are cleaned promptly and carefully, they last a long time and more than pay for themselves.  Decent brushes also make painting things like the toys easier, as I was sitting there painting I felt like on of Santa's elves. ( I would rather make toys than be a dentist)