One of the underlying things that has always sort of, indirectly at least,
been part of graffiti culture is what i like to call the scavenging part of graffiti. Since the
beginning of graffiti as we know it, graffiti writers and artists have always gone to really
extensive lengths to get graffiti markers, mops, and paint for the cheapest possible. And the
predominant demographics of graffiti, at least in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, were people with lower
incomes who were struggling in neglected parts of large cities. And although the demographics
of graffiti have diversified quite a bit since the 70s through 90s, some of the values of graffiti
artists at that time have stayed in graffiti culture. And one of those values that i think
most graffiti artists are still quite concerned with is saving money on graffiti supplies like
these. And i think that is a great value to have! So in light of that today i'd like to bring you
five ways to save money on graffiti supplies! Or more specifically five ways to get more out
of your graffiti supplies. So let's dive straight into it. I've got a lot of tips;
some of which are just plain good for graffiti artists to know and others have been ones that
i've sort of found and developed over the years, that i personally use to save money on graffiti
supplies as well. So i've got a lot of stuff, as you can see here, with me on my sort of little
studio desk here. All of these things are things i'm going to be using today and demonstrating
through my close-up view on the gopro. So let's get to it. The first way to save a bit of money
on graffiti supplies is something that i like to refer to as proper mop care. Proper mop care is
something that helps your graffiti mops and markers last longer and therefore you won't
have to replace them as often or replace the nibs as often either. So something i'll show you guys
here, you can see this mop. I'm taking off the cap and the nib is stuck to the cap essentially.
So what we're gonna do right now is just try and get this nib out of here. And i'll tell you that
is more difficult than it usually is. But this is why we do this. And essentially when the cap
is gonna eat the nib off like that when you uncork it, the mop is useless to us. So this is where the
acetone comes in. Number one, acetone is the base for nail polish remover. It's fairly cheap. As you
can see i got this one at Dollarama very cheap. But it's very strong stuff. This is what we're
gonna be taking advantage of today to get some results and save us some money. So first step:
just shake a bit of it onto a rag. And what we're gonna do is just use it like so. And what we're
doing is cleaning the threads up. And you can see everything that's being taken off mainly by
the acetone here. The acetone does a really great job. This is going to take a little while. And you
can see the great work this acetone is doing, like that's magnificent, how easy this gets taken off
with a proper chemical. And we're also cleaning up the threads of the mop here, just so everyone
is aware. And look at that. We've pretty much got as much of the paint as we're gonna get off of it.
And something here, the cap is covered in this ink as well. What you just want to do is same thing
you're going to clean it out and you can see how much crap we're getting off here. We're starting
to see the white colour on the inside of the cap again; i haven't seen that in years on this mop.
I'll tell you so you can do that for as long as you want really. It depends on how clean you want
to get this. I was focusing a lot on the threads here. And now what happens is we put the cap on;
it's on nice and tight. And well, it almost came off but it didn't that time so you can see that's
a big improvement. If i give this a bit more time, clear the threads out a little bit more,
you'll be a-okay and you'll have sort of saved a mop nib. Some people think that when a mop nib is
sticking to the top of the cap that it's just too dirty to not do that and they replace the mop. Now
that would be a total waste of money when a little drop of acetone would fix that problem for you.
But some nibs legitimately just are used and although you can continue to use them when
they look like this, and although i do use them looking like that, at a certain point you do want
to change your mop nib and let me tell you it's far cheaper to just change a mop nib than it is
to be buying an entire new mop every time you need a new nib. For those cases you can buy some
replacement nibs here. I've said this before in a video, very recently actually, but look at the mop
nibs of each of the sort of best brands, Grog, Molotow, On the Run, i hate to mention Krink.
But just compare the per unit prices of them and buy whichever mop nibs are cheapest that are the
right size the nib. Will be a little bit hard to remove and then what you want to do is take your
new mop nib and just pop it on there. Then you have a brand new mop nib. Works just like new
when you replace the nib like that! That's a very easy tip number one. But it's an important one
for the newer graffiti writers to know for sure. Second tip, if you have some Molotow One4alls or
say something like this mini Grog Cutter, that has a chisel tip nib that's just all dried up
and doesn't flow very well anymore, you can do what i like to call a nib reset! And again,
your acetone is going to come in very handy here, and what you want to do is just make a little pool
of it in a container. You don't need very much at all, and let me emphasize this is a very strong
chemical. As much as i love the smell of like paints, and gasoline, and chemicals like that,
acetone is very strong and it's not something to mess around with. And what you want to do is
just take the nib and we're going to give it a nice little bath. You just take the nib set it
in there for a while. You're going to see all that crap start oozing out of it. So this process gets
everything out of these nibs that's clogging it up if you let it sit for long enough. But
if you do do this, you're going to want to remove it from the acetone and then put it in like a pool
of water to get all that acetone out of the nib afterwards. And then, step three of this process
is remove it from the water, towel it off, and let it dry completely before you put it back in
your nib. So we're gonna let that sit over here for a while and let it do its thing. You can
already tell how much crap is coming out of this nib even though it was a totally dried up nib.
The third money-saving tip i have here is simply just to save your old paint and ink! For example,
i put some thicker full metal paint in here with this extra flow paint of Grog that they offer, and
the nib did not take too kindly to that. That's exactly why it's all clogged up. It does not
like full metal paint. So what i'm gonna do once i finish accidentally dismembering this mini cutter
is transfer the leftover paint to what is quickly becoming like a dump bottle for my miscellaneous
inks and paints. And this is a good thing to do while your nib soaks in acetone here. I'm just
going to empty this out and later on fill it with something that's a little more kind to the nib.
And this will help you make a concoction that gives your graffiti that unique edge that we
all love. And this third trick is even more relevant when it comes to transferring paint from
old Molotows to new Molotows. (I say new - this one still has the old design on it actually) but
for example, here's one the nibs, looks fine but it's just totally dried out. Like you can't even
compress it anymore, which you could fix by using your wonderful acetone bath! So something you can
do with these as well is just take out the valve system of each, keep the valve systems
separate though so you know which is the good one, which is the not so good one anymore,
and then of course all you need to do is transfer over your extra paint.
This should go without saying but make sure you have enough room in the receiving marker to take
all the paint. Reassemble the valve system, give it a bit of a clean off if you want, try not to
compress the valve system, screw the top back on. I've been getting this cap all dirty but still
works still works. And then you have a nice, even fuller Molotow one4all. You might get an extra
mixing ball in there with it as well. And now this Molotow one4all is even fuller than it was
when i first bought it. The fourth money saving tip for your graffiti supplies is very specific
but to generalize it i guess i could say, check what size your reservoir openings are on your mops
and see what nib size they are. Because for example this Krink K66, the steel ball bearing
is gone out of it. It essentially just leaks paint all the time. But i know for a fact that
the Krink K66 is the exact same size as, you guessed it, the Krink K60. So now if
i have a nib that is this size as well, i can just pop it on there which i will do...
you know what i don't have an extra one, so we're gonna use this one that i just changed. You can
just pop it right on there and it will work perfectly for your new modified Krink K66 into
a K60. And of course you need a cap if you have an extra one of the K60 caps laying around, of
course you can use that and just chuck this, but something you're probably going to end up doing
is having to use it. Screw it back on and that'll be your cap for your new k60 - 66. But essentially
you've saved the mop reservoir and when it comes to ones expensive as Krink, that's a good thing to
do. Yeah this is one that'll make your crewmates do a double take when they see you unscrew a k66
and then use it like a normal mop! And i think it's worth mentioning that the same thing can be
done for like a broken Grog metal head here which I have. All you have to do is remove the cap,
and then of course it would be a slightly bigger nib size that you'd have to use there. The fifth
money-saving tip here, for your graffiti supplies, is again one that this acetone will help you out
a lot with, and it is using it to save the valve systems of your chisel tip markers as well as your
Molotow one4alls, uni markers, any kind of paint marker really. Again you can take totally gummed
up valve systems off of your one4alls, or whatever paint marker you may have, and just give them
that nice acetone bath. I'm gonna throw that in there. It should be a little deeper to make
sure you don't have to play around with it just like that. And again you're doing the exact same
thing. You're just gonna let this sit in here for however long you think is necessary and then
after that you'll do the same thing as with the nib: Take it out; you have to let it sit in a pool
of water after that; and then thirdly of course you're going to take it out and wait for it to
dry entirely before screwing it back on, so none of that filthy acetone penetrates your precious
markers. Also don't leave the reservoirs open or at least it's not the greatest idea to. You could
leave them open, upright like that in some kind of tape so they don't leak but you could also
at least put the cap back on. Just don't shake them or anything when they're like this because
in that case there's nothing stopping the paint from just going everywhere other than the cap.
And actually as sort of like a bonus tip here involving valve systems, if you have some really
really clogged spray cans, you could actually take some spray cans and if it's clogged beyond fixing,
fill that little area there with acetone and let it sit for a couple days. This might
break up the paint enough so that you can use like a q-tip or something to get in there, maybe get
some of the really gummed up paint out of there, and give it another try at declogging with a nail
or a hairpin or whatever you may try. Fair warning though, on that tip i don't do that too too often,
so i would say if you're going to do that do that outside when it's above zero degrees celsius,
or in a garage or something because i can't 100 percent say that a can won't explode because of
that or something. I don't see why it would but i haven't done that frequently enough to
say that it definitely won't and i don't want to be responsible for that! But i know i've barely
scratched the surface on this topic and i know you guys must have tons of money-saving tips to share
with the graffiti community here on the channel. So feel free to share that knowledge in the
comments section below and learn from others in that comment section as well. The vast knowledge
in our graffiti community is something that we can all share and all learn from and better ourselves
as graffiti artists. A few of you guys have said that you really enjoyed these sort of top five
formats of the videos, so i decided to make this one that format as well. You can check out some
other top five videos on screen now. And just as a side note: since i talked a bit about graffiti
history at the beginning of this video, i will tell you that i have a patreon account, which
is linked in the description if you want to check it out. I am going to be having a exclusive video
on that patreon about a more in-depth graffiti history, or about some aspects of graffiti history
if you want to check that out! And the more support i get on the patreon, the more likely
it is i'll start producing more regular content over there as well. So i'll see you in another
top five video maybe. Check out some of the other series on the channel! uUtil then, peace!