Lead Adventure Forum
Other Stuff => Workbench => Topic started by: Bravo Six on June 26, 2022, 04:32:06 AM
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I've always had luck washing my Windsor Newton Cotman brushes after each use (using liquid soap and cool water) and that usually gets all the paint muck off to a large extent. After a while, they wear out and need to be replaced, but over all, I get a lot of use out of them. Lately, it seems no matter what I do, after about 4 or 5 painting sessions, the brushes start to split, and I mean BADLY! In the past, a quick dip in some water before painting restores the point and I'm good to go. But now, even that does NOTHING.
I haven't changed anything in my routine (brushes, soap, temp of the water) but these brushes just don't last and I'm chucking them way faster than usual and it's aggrovating me to no end. Someone suggested a brush shaper, but I'm wondering if this is just a gimmick and they don't actually work. So I figured it was worth appealing to the LAF hive mind to see what experiences people have with these and whether they're worth their weight in gold, or not.
What say you?
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I've never heard of such a thing.
I too clean brushes & tend to have a favorite few, but ALL brushes have their uses.
Jar 1) Brand new, nice points. Easy to work with.
Jar 2) Starting to 'spit' or 'spread'. Good for dry-brushing & stippling effects.
Jar 3) Knackered. Used for spreading glue & similar gunk
Jar 4) Bristles permanently set. These get cut off & used as bushes. The handle
is used for paint stirring until I need some tree/bush stems for (normally
alien) plant life. They have also been chopped up &used in:-
barricades; primitive buildings or as the basic shape of mili-putted aliens.
In short I do NOT chuck things away. People who have seen my room will
so testify. :D :D :D
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Splitting means one of two things. There is residual paint in the ferrule, holding the brush fibres apart. Or, the brush hair quality is not good enough to keep its shape after use.
Change your brush routine a little to eliminate point one as a cause.……swap liquid soap for Masters brush cleaner. This stuff is the most effective at getting paint out, certainly better than liquid soap. Liquid soap may also contain chemicals to keep your hands supple, and these may soften the bristles causing them to lose snap and reducing their ability to hold a point. Secondly, keep the plastic sleeves the brushes come in and store them point downwards when drying and not in use. Any residual paint will then migrate to the tip of the brush, not to the ferrule, and will not cause the brush to split.
If it’s point two though the only way to stop it is change brands. I changed from W&N series 7 to Raphael for this exact reason. Rosemary and Co series 93 are a good equivalent to Cottman, so trying a couple of them might eliminate your problem.
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I tried the Green stuff world Brush repair gel to try out on some older brushes that were starting to split. It looked and smelled like hair gel. It did seem to work to a point but after using and rinsing twice the split would always come back.
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Most modelling consumables are repackaged mass market items, so that is quite possibly what it actually was lol
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My brushes are generally worn out before I have to be concerned about this - I just rinse with water, dry with kitchen paper, then reset the point with saliva, before storing with the tip protector on. IIRC a Rosemary 000 will see me through about 30 minis before it’s lost too many hairs to still be useful.
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My brushes are generally worn out before I have to be concerned about this - I just rinse with water, dry with kitchen paper, then reset the point with saliva, before storing with the tip protector on. IIRC a Rosemary 000 will see me through about 30 minis before it’s lost too many hairs to still be useful.
Similar here! Some 50 paintjobs and off they go. That’s a good enough lifetime of a brush for me.
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Bigger brushes have just as sharp a point, and last much longer. On 15mm and bigger anything smaller than a decent number 1 brush is unnecessary in my experience. My number 1 Rosemaries have lasted about four years and were used most days up until the last few months. I have three in rotation, and have painted about three hundred 15mm and around 200 twenty eights in that time, and this includes eyes on the 28s. They have also been used on other types of models and a few commission builds for friends. Just about worn out now though.
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Bigger brushes have just as sharp a point, and last much longer.
Many, many years ago we came across a modeler we nick-named, 'Gob
of Mili-put' as he made wonderful 25mm figures that he said were just
a, 'Gob of Mili-put'.
When we first saw him he was painting the words 'Gross Deutschland' on the
sleeve waffenfarbe (?) of a 25mm Panzer crewman. We asked just HOW small
a brush did he use? 'Size three water colour brush' was his answer, 'It keeps
a VERY fine point' and 'a good reservoir of paint.'
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Bigger brushes have just as sharp a point, and last much longer.
For painting, yes, I agree. Though I also mix the paint with my 000s; in my experience bigger brushes do tend to clog worse with paint mixing, as they have a bigger reservoir to clean out.
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I tried a number of different brushes last year - Raphael 8404, Pro-Arte Series 1 and Artis Opus Series S - and they all forked the first time they were dipped into paint.
Some I have been able to recover through the use of Gum Arabic and leaving them for a couple of weeks to ‘straighten’ out.
I have gone back to my trustworthy Rosemary Series 33 and W&N Series 7 brushes but changed the way I clean them.
I use a small amount of Vallejo Airbrush Thinner to initially clean the brushes at the end of a session, then apply some baby shampoo to give them a second clean, rinse that off and then add a small amount of baby hair conditioner.
It seems like a lot of work but my brushes are definitely lasting longer and keeping their shape.
During painting I use 2 water containers to clean my brushes, the first has a drop of baby shampoo in the water, the second is plain water.
I had been using Dawn liquid dish soap in the 1st water jar but I had read that this type of soap can strip the bristles of their natural oils.
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That’s just weird Minden. Never had that even with synthetic or really old brushes. Must admit though, I always dip mine in clean water and wick off the excess before they get put in paint for the first time. It seems to stop the paint migrating straight to the ferrule like it can in a dry brush.
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My brushes are generally worn out before I have to be concerned about this - I just rinse with water, dry with kitchen paper, then reset the point with saliva, before storing with the tip protector on. IIRC a Rosemary 000 will see me through about 30 minis before it’s lost too many hairs to still be useful.
Holy crud! :o
I once saw this lady who was quite the well known painter at the time (can't remember her name), who professed using brand new W&N s7 brushes with each paintjob, throwing the old ones out (or relegating them to 'lesser' duties perhaps?).
Seriously; I'm not a frugal person (especially when it comes to the hobby ::) ), but this I always viewed as a complete waste and quite frankly, slightly snobby.
I have a W&N s5 size 0 brush that I have used extensively since I bought it in 1996(!), is still in great condition and on my desk right now, as I'm currently using it. And I am not particularly conscientious when it comes to cleaning my brushes either; I may only do this every couple of months at best with brush soap etc, although I do always vigorously rinse them in my waterpot before drying them off on a rag after finishing a colour. Sometimes, when I am working with a single colour for a longer time, I rinse inbetween as well.
Also, I'm not too good at keeping the loading of the brush under control; I often load up too much paint. By rights, my brushes should be horrible, and my results sub-par. But the opposite is true (well; at least I think so).
Yes; the smaller brushes such as my 000 and 0000 ones do need replacements every now and then, but when I purchase one a year, it's well above average for me. Although truth be told; I'm not the most prolific painter out there, and painting over 100 miniatures a year (28mm or equivalent) I consider to be braggable :D
But in actuality, I tend to 'get to know' my brushes; each and every one has its own idiosyncrasies which I use to its effect. A brush might have its point curled for instance; which to me is a great tool to dot eyes, or do other tiny detail work.
And so, I get very used to my brushes, using the same set over and over again, using each one to its strength.
Brushes only get discarded or relegated to 2nd line duties when they're not able to fulfil their tasks anymore, usually due to loosing too many hairs. But that takes many years on average. And it's not always the most expensive brushes that yield the best results or last the longest either.
I know everyone is fawning over red sable brushes, and everywhere I look, I see people using larger sized brushes, with long, soft bristles, but I like my brushes to be small, firm and have relatively short bristles. And my preferred types are from the W&N series 5; synthetic brushes that are way cheaper than the series 7 or other equivalent products by different manufacturers. I have quite a few expensive brushes I just can't get used to (long and soft).
Youtubers using a size 1 brush (just the tip) to do detail work is just weird to me; like I said I use sizes 000 and 0000 for detail work myself. 0 and 00 are my worker brushes, and those are the largest ones I tend to use on miniatures (bar make-up brushes for drybrushing).
Therefore discarding brushes after a couple of hours of painting is baffling to me, and the mentioned problems I rarely, if ever, encounter, so I can't be of advise here. But I just wanted to share a different perspective on brushes and their use... :)
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just to muddy the (paint-brush cleaning) water further - I'm pretty sure Rosemary's recommended to me that brushes should be allowed to air-dry without the plastic sheath they (sometimes) come with, and without being re-pointed at that ...er ... point.
I may have got that a bit wrong.
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Comes down to what works for you, works for you, and what works for him/her, works for him/her. If what should work for you doesn’t work for you, or stops working for you, try something else…..brushes are tools. No tool works to its best advantage the first time you pick it up. Put the graft in so you know it well enough to get it to do what you want it to do.
Lastly, do you know the address of that profligate painter? Might be worth raiding her bins. There must be a market for hardly used series sevens out there…..
Oh, and what was a brush shaper, by the way :D
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...do you know the address of that profligate painter? Might be worth raiding her bins. There must be a market for hardly used series sevens out there…..
I think it may have been Jennifer Hailey. I'll let you do the doxing though... lol
Oh, and what was a brush shaper, by the way :D
Yeah; that question still hasn't been anserwed, now has it? :D
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I know Jen Haley does beautiful work and she has said in the past that she prefers a larger brush with a sharp point. Personally I prefer a range of brushes - big brushes for big work, small brushes for small work. I have more control over a tiny brush, it doesn't obscure the bit I'm trying to paint and I prefer reloading the paint for details like eyes, to avoid a flood of paint spilling out. But if I'm doing a larger area of fine detail, like patterns on cloth for example, then a larger brush with a sharp point (using paint with a retarder medium) is the way I roll.
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Thanks for the input lads. Talk about muddier paint water..... lol
@Daeothar
Youtubers using a size 1 brush (just the tip) to do detail work is just weird to me; like I said I use sizes 000 and 0000 for detail work myself. 0 and 00 are my worker brushes, and those are the largest ones I tend to use on miniatures (bar make-up brushes for drybrushing).
I'm with you on that. 00 and 0 are my worker brushes too. WN Series 111 are cost effective and usually (and I mean "usually" not always) found here in Canada at Michaels. I can't find this Series 5 you refer to though. No mention of it on the W&N site.
I guess my question to Sunburst's point about paint stuck in the ferrule...... how does one loosen this up? I always try to clean that area well and can often feel mini bits of paint come loose from that area, leading me to believe (falsely it seems) that I'm cleaning the brushes well.
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I guess my question to Sunburst's point about paint stuck in the ferrule...... how does one loosen this up?
I give the brush a rinse in some 100% acetone, which does the trick. You have to be careful not to overdo it though, because it will also loosen the glue holding the bristles in place.
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For years I was in the small brush for details camp. The problem I found was that the brushes just didn't hold up for very long and some times even started bending. Too few fibers and too much pressure, I think. I started using larger brushes with excellent points for details and found they lasted far longer than smaller ones. I don't buy the small brushes anymore in fact.
As far as brushes are concerned, I think a couple points haven't been mentioned. First, I always use thinned down paint. Normal paint out of a bottle is just way too thick, IMO, and not only has a tendency to "blob" but also destroys the tip of the brush because it is too heavy for the tip to hold. Second, is that once I load the tip of the brush with paint and use it, I rinse the brush and remove all the paint even if I am using the same color. I also let the paint flow off the brush naturally and do not try to force it onto the miniature. When I look back at my painting style before I started using larger brushes, I believe that the real problem I was having with the tips was that I would be continuously dipping the brush back into the paint without cleaning it and putting too much pressure on the tip and not allowing it to simple flow naturally where I passed the brush.
Mind you, rinsing off the brush continuously slows down your output, as does using watered down paint, but I feel I get a much better result and extend the life of my brushes by doing so. I never, never, allow paint to enter the ferrule of the brush, unless it is one of my older brushes that I just want to get a rapid base coat painted on.
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I've used this stuff.
https://www.generalpencil.com/store/p92/100-BJ.html
As long as my brush wasn't too far gone, it worked with cleaning and reshaping. I was shocked at just how much paint I was able to get out of some of my brushes. And it did help reshape a few. Not perfect, though. On the plus side, a small container at my local art store was like $8.
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Thinned paint I assumed was a given Ray, but I may well be wrong. You should be able to let the paint flow off of the brush, not need to push it off. I also rinse as I go, and always wet the brush with fresh water and repoint it (with my mouth, yeh, I know, yuk!) before picking up paint again. Tip drying kills paint flow as much as over thick paint. It is less of an issue with bigger brushes because they have a smaller surface area to volume ratio and therefore dry out more slowly.
Something else not mentioned is that Metallics kill brushes as well. The particles are larger than ground up normal paint pigment and hold the bristles apart. I use older brushes for that purpose.
Good call Bullock. The Masters brush cleaner is what I use to clean my brushes at the end of every painting session. Adopting this into my routine is what I believe has increased the life of my brushes exponentially. I believe it has terpenes incorporated into the formula to loosen dried paint.
Interesting discussion this…..we are all doing the same simple thing, but we are pretty much all doing it in our own individual way. Ain’t modelling great LOL.
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I mentioned thinned paint because one cannot assume that all folks do that. Un-thinned paint is a brush killer.
And Yes, I also repoint by brush with my mouth, however, not like before, because now I always am cleaning my brush by giving it a twisting motion on my napkin which pretty much gives you a darn good point in and of itself. So I think now when I stick the brush in my mouth, its more to make sure the brush is moist than to give it a really good point (which is does).
Sticks brush in mouth... yummy! :D
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I’ll admit to keeping a bag of sweets in the model room for the times I forget to rinse the brush before repointing it Ray LOL.
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Interesting discussion this…..we are all doing the same simple thing, but we are pretty much all doing it in our own individual way. Ain’t modelling great LOL.
Ain't it Sunburst? :D I'll echo your sentiment that this has been a VERY interesting and insightful discussion. I'm glad I started it. What was the original topic about again? I can't remember..... lol
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I believe it was “brush shaper”?
From the instructions, the Speedball Mona Lisa Brush Shaper is used after cleaning the brush and when dry the instructions say just move the bristles across your hand or rinse the brush. Seems to be a form of conditioner.
The spec sheet mentions Borax?
https://www.speedballart.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/422.pdf
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Hah; the first time I open a link from the LAF at work and it's actually work appropriate; MSDS's are basically the bread and butter of my professional life these days lol
I don't know why, but the description of 'brush-shaper' evoked a vision of something vaguely mechanical in nature, rather than a conditioner. Perhaps a pencil sharpener-like contraption of sorts? My visualising mind wanders into odd territory sometimes...
And some corrections on my previous post; the very old brush is indeed a W&N series 5, but the smaller ones that have been purchased since then are all of the W&N III variety. What threw me off is the fact both are the same light blue colour. The old brush has lost its gold lettering decades ago, but I still have the W&N gouache set it came with, and the description in there mentions a series 5 alright.
Also, it's actually a size 1... ::)
And then there's this thing that has shaped the way I paint maybe as much; I used to paint under two halogen lamps, and those things got hot. So hot that over the years, they actually melted the supposedly heat resistant housings and mountings. I used to hold resin and plastic parts right in front of them to heat them up to reshape; no hot water required there...
But the heat assured I had to apply my paints quickly, because they would dry on the brush within tens of seconds. So I adjusted my painting techniques accordingly. Never used a wet palette, but learned to keep everything plenty watered at all times. Yes; that means the paint on the palette as well.
This also meant I had to keep my brushes moist at all times, and the only ones that gave me some occasional trouble due to drying time were the very small detail brushes like 0000-sized ones.
So when transitioning to LED lamps, I got frustrated quite a few times when paint seemingly didn't want to dry; I was so used to paint being dry within seconds or at most a minute after application, that it actually affected my painting speed. I've adjusted now, but I do confess missing the heat and the speed.
This might also have had an effect on the way I used and maintained my brushes; neccessity forced me to keep them moist and clean, resulting in increased longevity...
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Review on the Mona Lisa brush shaper. Unfortunately, the reviews don't mention what size brush and medium, so aren't too helpful: "This product works when used on brushes with very soft, fine bristles but with anything coarser doesn't seem to do anything much to reshape the brush. I used it on several synthetic oil and acrylic brushes including Winsor & Newton Artisan brushes, all with curled or splayed out bristles. It made very little difference to any of them. Very limited in its effectiveness."
Still for $12, you can tell us and let us know! :P
Only technique I can add is that I'll use a bad tip for the large areas, then, even if it's the same color, a better one for the smaller! The less I use a good tip, the longer it seems to last... lol
EDIT: I'm fiddling with using colored airbrush primers to "thin" hobby paints. Dip the brush in the primer, then the paint. Mix from the brush on a dry palette (or wet). I already prime miniatures by brushing on colored airbrush primer to speed up painting, and colored airbrush primers are cheaper per ounce than hobby paints, since you buy them in 2oz and 4oz bottles. The colors won't match, but that means you're forced to mix and blend the colors, if you're as lazy as I am. :P
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UXHBP4?&tag=crafteriahub0022-20
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Just read through this again and very interesting to see how everyone else is doing things. For the speedball stuff, it looks just like the brush cleaner I use to use in the states. If it is the same stuff it is amazing. You could actually see particles of acrylic paint working out of the ferrule when cleaning a brush that had been sat for a while. Thank you all for the links becasue I will be ordering some soon.
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I've had some success with this stuff from Instar.
https://shop.instarpaint.com/product/soap/ (https://shop.instarpaint.com/product/soap/)