I’m not sure that I had used Hammerite paint before doing the work on the BBQ earlier this week. It goes on well and gives an excellent finish but is not the most pleasant paint to work with, particularly when it comes to cleaning up. I declined to buy the Hammerite branded thinners but it took ages to clean up using white spirit (then rinsing with washing up liquid) after the first coat.

Before the second, I did a bit of reading. Some suggested that you had to buy the (expensive) official thinners and others said you might as well just use a cheap brush and throw it away. The latter feels wasteful but probably cheaper on the cost front! However, another suggestion was to soak the brush in olive oil. I ended up using some rapeseed oil, which is a bit cheaper than the olive oil I had and I wonder if any vegetable-based oil would do?

It did seem to work through. After a couple of days sitting in the oil, the brush was supple, although still dirty. I painted the oily mess from the brush onto several sheets of newspaper before using a little bit of white spirit, followed by the washing-up liquid rinse and I think that brush might still be useable next time I need to break out the hammerite. I still prefer the ease of working with water-based paints but, when you need an extra tough surface, the cooking oil trick seems worth bearing in mind.