Wrap it in plastic wrap and try it.....and I say that because there are multiethnic tee of laquer and all are different in regard to solvent and clean-up. Ron

 

It may work for lacquer, but, don't do it with the new formulas for latex paint. Your brush and/or roller will be ruined. For some reason the new formulas GUM UP the brushes and no amount of washing them will restore them to their original form.

 

Put a table spoon of lacquer thinner in the smallest seal-able container your brush will go in and seal the lid. It'll be good tomorrow.

 

I'm not sure about whatever laquer ur using. A old trick for oil. And it would likely work. Just submerge the bristles of the brush in a cup/pot of water. Shake off the water a bit when u go to use it the next day. The water just shakes off.

But even that said. It's just as easy to dump some thins in a pot. Squish the brush out in it a bit. Put the jacket on it or wrap it in newspaper and let it sit in the thins, kick it out in the morning and use.

 

My understanding of lacquers is that they form a film strictly by the evaporation of a thinner. No chemical reaction takes place in the film forming process like you have with "oil based" coatings, and there's no coalescence involved like you have with latex primers and paints. Lacquer dries to a solid the same way that muck dries into mud; strictly by the evaporation of a thinner.

http://www.essentialingredients.com/pdf/thesciencebehindnaillacquers.pdf

(The above web page talks about the lacquers used for women's finger nail polish, but it's exactly the same chemistry as lacquers used as wood coatings.)

Since lacquers dry by evaporation of the thinner(s), there's no need to put anything in the freezer. Preventing the evaporation of the thinner by wrapping the brush tightly in a plastic bag should be sufficient to keep the lacquer from drying out.

 

My understanding of lacquers is that they form a film strictly by the evaporation of a solvent. No chemical reaction takes place in the film forming process like you have with "oil based" coatings, and there's no coalescence involved like you have with latex primers and paints. Lacquer dries to a solid the same way that muck dries into mud; strictly by the evaporation of a thinner.

http://www.essentialingredients.com/pdf/thesciencebehindnaillacquers.pdf

If that's the case, then there's no need to put anything in the freezer. Preventing the evaporation of the thinner by wrapping the brush tightly in a plastic bag should be sufficient to keep the lacquer from drying out.

Hmm that seems like the easiest bet. Worse case scenario I ruin a $4 brush. Thanks everyone else for the tips too, some stuff to try.

I also bought acetone, will that work ok for cleaning it without it producing gumk? I'm kinda worried about what I'm doing to my drainage by cleaning it with just water, when I do clean it.

 

I would use lacquer thinner instead of acetone.

Lacquer thinner is typically 60 to 80 percent toluene, so if you have toluene you can use that too.

Here's an MSDS for one company's lacquer thinner:

http://www.wsc.edu/facility_services/msds/lacquer_thinner.pdf

It says that the toluene content varies from 5 to 60 percent. What that means is that when their toluene supply diminishes because the truck carrying the toluene drove off a cliff, or otherwise wasn't able to deliver the toluene, they substitute other solvents so that they can keep selling lacquer thinner to their customers. Typically, lacquer thinner is mostly toluene.

 

PS:

I know this is off topic, but I thought I'd throw it in for those people that might be interested:

In every leaf of every tree there's a complex chemical factory that produces sugar molecules. H2O from the roots, CO2 from the air and energy from the Sun all combine to produce sugar molecules in the green parts of every plant, including plants that grow in water like kelp and algae.

There are actually two different kinds of glucose molecules; alpha glucose and beta glucose:

The difference is in which side of the glucose molecule that hydroxyl group (-OH) on the right side of each drawing is on.

If you link together alpha glucose molecules end to end like railway cars on a train, you get starch, which is what potatoes, rice, wheat and pasta are made of.

If you link together beta glucose molecules end to end like railway cars on a train, you get cellulose, which is what wood, cotton, paper and your blue jeans are made of. Cotton is nearly 100 percent cellulose.

MOST of every plant that grows on this good Earth is made out of sugar. Until now, we have been using the starch from plants (like corn and potatoes) to make alcohol, or gasohol, to reduce our consumption of gasoline and reduce our carbon footprint.

The Holy Grail of chemistry now is to find a way to use the cellulose from plants to make sugar and hence, alcohol. We know this CAN BE DONE because organisms like the wood rot fungus and even cows that eat grass are converting cellulose into sugar to be used in their own metabolic processes. But so far, we've been unable to duplicate what the wood rot fungus and cows do naturally.

When that breakthrough in chemistry happens, and we finally learn to convert cellulose back into sugar, it will revolutionize the agriculture industry throughout the world, and in fact, change the world. On a corn farm for example, the ears of corn would be harvested for human consumption (as food), and the stocks of the plants themselves would be collected and used to make sugars of various kinds, and those sugars would also be fermented to produce ethyl alcohol. Suddenly, all the stuff we're currently throwing away, like old cotton clothes, books and paper, leaves and grass, and even old wooden furniture would have value as a source of cellulose, and therefore sugar and ethyl alcohol.

I don't know when that breakthrough in chemistry will occur, but THAT will be the point when we can seriously start switching from petroleum based fuels to ethanol based fuels, and this good Earth will be a completely different place. Hopefully an environmentally sustainable place.

Lacquer is a form of cellulose called "nitrocellulose". It's cellulose that has had nitrogen and oxygen added to it through a chemical process. Since sugar already has lots of carbon and hydrogen atoms in it, adding oxygen to the molecular structure means that nitrocellulose can burn even in the absence of air. In fact, nitrocellulose is also known as "gun cotton" and was used as a low energy explosive. (How that relates to guns, I don't know.)

Here's the chemical structure of nitrocellulose. It's basically pairs of sugar molecules linked end to end like railway cars in a train. (Only now each car represents two sugar molecules connected with an oxygen atom, and the CH2OH groups have been replaced with CH2ONO2 groups, so there's a lot more oxygen atoms in nitrocellulose than there is in cellulose.)



And here's more on nitrocellulose:

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Nitrocellulose

 

PS:

I know this is off topic, but I thought I'd throw it in for those people that might be interested:

In every leaf of every tree there's a complex chemical factory that produces sugar molecules. H2O from the roots, CO2 from the air and energy from the Sun all combine to produce sugar molecules in the green parts of every plant, including plants that grow in water like kelp and algae.

There are actually two different kinds of glucose molecules; alpha glucose and beta glucose:

The difference is in which side of the glucose molecule that hydroxyl group (-OH) on the right side of each drawing is on.

If you link together alpha glucose molecules end to end like railway cars on a train, you get starch, which is what potatoes, rice, wheat and pasta are made of.

If you link together beta glucose molecules end to end like railway cars on a train, you get cellulose, which is what wood, cotton, paper and your blue jeans are made of. Cotton is nearly 100 percent cellulose.

MOST of every plant that grows on this good Earth is made out of sugar. Until now, we have been using the starch from plants (like corn and potatoes) to make alcohol, or gasohol, to reduce our consumption of gasoline and reduce our carbon footprint.

The Holy Grail of chemistry now is to find a way to use the cellulose from plants to make sugar and hence, alcohol. We know this CAN BE DONE because organisms like the wood rot fungus and even cows that eat grass are converting cellulose into sugar to be used in their own metabolic processes. But so far, we've been unable to duplicate what the wood rot fungus and cows do naturally.

When that breakthrough in chemistry happens, and we finally learn to convert cellulose back into sugar, it will revolutionize the agriculture industry throughout the world, and in fact, change the world. On a corn farm for example, the ears of corn would be harvested for human consumption (as food), and the stocks of the plants themselves would be collected and used to make sugars of various kinds, and those sugars would also be fermented to produce ethyl alcohol. Suddenly, all the stuff we're currently throwing away, like old cotton clothes, books and paper, leaves and grass, and even old wooden furniture would have value as a source of cellulose, and therefore sugar and ethyl alcohol.

I don't know when that breakthrough in chemistry will occur, but THAT will be the point when we can seriously start switching from petroleum based fuels to ethanol based fuels, and this good Earth will be a completely different place. Hopefully an environmentally sustainable place.

Lacquer is a form of cellulose called "nitrocellulose". It's cellulose that has had nitrogen and oxygen added to it through a chemical process. Since sugar already has lots of carbon and hydrogen atoms in it, adding oxygen to the molecular structure means that nitrocellulose can burn even in the absence of air. In fact, nitrocellulose is also known as "gun cotton" and was used as a low energy explosive. (How that relates to guns, I don't know.)

Here's the chemical structure of nitrocellulose. It's basically pairs of sugar molecules linked end to end like railway cars in a train. (Only now each car represents two sugar molecules connected with an oxygen atom, and the CH2OH groups have been replaced with CH2ONO2 groups, so there's a lot more oxygen atoms in nitrocellulose than there is in cellulose.)



And here's more on nitrocellulose:

https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Nitrocellulose

I read an article a few years ago about converting plant waste such as corn into ethanol in the Columbus Dispatch (Ohio). This is a major course of study at the Ohio State University Agricultural Research Center near me. Apparently they are very close to making this a commercially viable process. Unfortunately the recent fall in the price of crude oil has led to another bout of short sightedness in expediting this fantastic breakthrough.
An awful lot of what is currently wasted during food production could be converted into a cheap, plentiful, and clean energy source.

 

Gymschu, thanks. I thought it was just me or I didn't seal my bag well before putting it in freezer but yes my brushes gummed up.

 

Just thought I'd report back that sealing it in plastic did in fact work fine. I'm wondering if this may even work with paint, if it's sealed then it can't dry right? But yeah took the brush out of the plastic and could immediately continue to use it.

 

Why dont you just put your brush in a bucket of water? Oxidizing paints wont oxidize, evaporating paints wont evaporate.

 

Also, Im not 100% familiar with the English terminology, but natural resin based paints (lacquers?) usually also contained some oil, which reacts with oxygen to cure.

The term non reactive seems strange, as acrylics also dry by evaporation of solvents (water, thinners).