Brush Shapers - Worth it?

[Bravo Six]

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?

[has.been]

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.

[2010sunburst]

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. 

[snitcythedog]

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. 

[2010sunburst]

Most modelling consumables are repackaged mass market items, so that is quite possibly what it actually was 

[Silent Invader]

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.

[Michi]

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.

[2010sunburst]

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. 

[has.been]

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.'

[Silent Invader]

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.

[Mindenbrush]

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.

[2010sunburst]

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. 

[Daeothar]

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! 

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

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...

[Bloggard]

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.

[2010sunburst]

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