Water-based gloss problem

[hampshirelass]

Hi,

I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong with my Johnstone's Aqua gloss that it insists on turning my brushes into a clogged-up mess.

The paint itself is new (only opened it for the first time a couple of weeks ago) and my brushes are synthetic Hamilton ones which I dampen well before I start painting and continue to dampen by lightly spraying with water every quarter of an hour or so for as long as I'm painting.

But still, after about an hour I can feel the bristles start stiffening, and when I come to wash the brush in soapy water I find I can't get the rotten stuff out as it seems to have somehow dried even in the presence of water(!)

So what am I missing? Am I supposed to keep breaking off every half hour to wash the brush out, or something?

 

[misterhelpful]

If you are finding that the paint is drying towards the bottom of the stock of the brush then it would be wise to rinse the brush as soon as you notice it happening. You don't have to go the whole hog with soapy water and clean the entire brush out.
With water based glosses, you can just dip them into some clean lukewarm water, run your fingers through the stock to remove the drying paint, ensuring all dried particles are gone, and then wipe your brush as dry as possible with an old towel. This also keeps the bristles damp and should help the paint flow.

 

[hampshirelass]

Thanks for replying, misterhelpful

If there are no additives or nifty tricks I s'pose I'm just going to have to adapt how I work. I've never had a problem working for long stretches with oil-based gloss, so I'm surprised that I'm finding this trickier (won't use oil again, btw, because of the yellowing issue). I thought that I was keeping the brush suitably wet, and I wasn't wanting to have to keep washing the brush as that would be wasting rather expensive paint (expensive by my standards, anyway!), but it would seem it's either that or keep trashing expensive brushes, so I guess I'll have to find a balance.

 

[misterhelpful]

There are additives to prolong the 'open' time of water based paints, Floetrol, for example, but with the glosses they seem to cause other issues so are best avoided. (I can't vouch for that, as I haven't used any with them.)
You don't really waste that much paint when washing the brushes, providing you remove as much excess from the fresher parts of the brush, but it is an irritation with water based paints, which are the way forward...apparently!