Somehow, hou're dipping your brush in the paint bucket more than usual. You're spending more time stroking on the paint to create an even finish. It's harder to cut in window sashes. This job is taking forever.
You have always thought you're a good painter.
You are.
It's your brush that's the problem.
More than likely, it's a machine-made, dirt-cheap brush designed for a homeowner who planned to throw it away after painting the swingset. Or it could be a so-called professional-grade brush that was professional in name only.
Yes, no matter what the old-timers tell you, it does make a difference what kind of filaments are in your brush...and how they were made...and how they were glued...and what kind of metal ferrule fastens them to the handle. "Every part of the brush is important," said Ben Waksman, sales manager for Corona Brushes. "Every part of the brush is important."
The above factors and others determine the price and quality of a brush, and as always, you get what you pay for.
Fortunately, that proverb works both ways. Pay a premium price for a handmade, high-quality brush and the return on your money is better workmanship and increased productivity. A high-quality brush is designed to carry more paint and distribute it evenly and precisely. That means fewer dips into the bucket, more coverage per stroke, and straight edges.
With today's paints, you can't afford not to use a good brush, said Jay Reighard, vice president of sales for brushmaker Bestt Liebco. Take a painter who's applying a one-coat paint priced at $30 a bucket with a $4 brush. If the brush leaves thin spots that require a second coat, or worse, leaves parts of itself, the cost benefit of the one-coat paint is wasted.
But how do you recognize a high-quality brush? What follows is a detailed primer on what distinguishes a good brush from a bad one, component by component. Master this material, and you'll never take your brush for granted again.
The filaments: When God made the hog, He must have had painters in mind. The bristles from a hog ÷ particularly those in China ÷ make excellent brush filaments. For one thing, they're thicker at the bottom than they are at the tip. This natural tapering allows the brush to gradually release the paint as opposed to unloading it all at once. Furthermore, bristle tips are split, or "flagged," allowing the brush to pick up more paint and lay it down evenly and smoothly.
Unfortunately, mankind has found several ways to mess up God's China bristle brush.
Dyeing and bleaching: Some manufacturers insist on dyeing or bleaching China hog bristles. That makes them lifeless, brittle, and more likely to snap off and end up in the paint. Picking them out of a sticky finish slows you down, to say the least.
The reason for color alteration can be frivolous, according to Bill Babkowski, technical service manager for Rubberset Co., the brush manufacturing division of the Sherwin-Williams Co. White china bristles are famous for their softness, but not all of these bristles are exactly white. Babkowski said some manufacturers bleach the darker ones to assure the customer that he's getting the real McCoy ÷ which he isn't anymore, once they're bleached.
Stinting on material: The more bristles a brush has, the more paint it picks up. "With fewer bristles, the brush tends to dump the paint, and it drips more," said Dean Robertson, brush and roller development manager for Wooster Brush Co.
Bristle content is measured in ounces. Robertson said a top quality, three-inch-wide varnish brush has approximately 2.5 ounces worth of bristles. A disposable version might have just .75 ounces.
Stinting on size: Brush bristles should vary in length to enhance tapering. However, at least 50 percent of the bristles should ber full-length, according to Robertson. Otherwise, you pick up less paint, and your finish has a more ragged appearance.
Brush length is marked according to "topside" percentage. With a brush at 80 percent topside, 80 percent of the bristles will be the maximum length.
Desecrating the flags: It takes more than individually tapered bristles to give a brush a sharp painting edge. One cheap way of improving the brush's overall taper is by simply trimming the tip end until it looks like a chisel. This method, however, removes much of the all-important flagging.
A better way to enhance taper is by trimming the butt ends of the filaments to preserve the flagging, or setting them on a convex rather than straight line.
Synthetic brush filaments, once far inferior in tapering and flagging and much else, now pretty much match the effectiveness of China hog bristles. The synthetics came on strong in the 1940s for two reasons: China bristle wasn't available during World War II; and the emergence of water-borne paints. Natural bristles would absorb the water, swell up, flare out, and become a floppy, inferior paint tool. Synthetic filaments like nylon and polyester, in contrast, are relatively water resistant.
Filament manufacturers like Dupont have since learned how to impart the qualities of a good China bristle brush to their products, but for the sake of cutting costs, some companies today make synthetic filaments that are as primitive as their predecessors.
Of particular interest right now is the Chinex filament, which is designed to be used in both latex and oil, and manufacturers are jumping on the bandwagon. "It may take awhile to take hold," said Ben Waksman of Corona, "but I think Chinex is the coming thing."
Lack of tapering: You can buy a low-end synthetic brush that has level, as opposed to tapered, filaments. But with level filaments, the brush tends to dump the paint, said Babkowski. Tapered filaments of varying lengths form a kind of ramp that paint runs down. Level filaments form a stairway ÷ and a rougher route for flowing paint.
Hollow filaments: Make sure your filaments are solid, not hollow, say paint brush experts. Solid filaments are more durable. And if they're bent, they'll return to their original shape. "They have a memory," said Jay Reighard of Bestt Liebco. "If hollow filaments are bent over, they stay bent."
Hollow filaments also tend to suck up the paint inside, making the brush considerably more difficult to clean well.
Reighard also recommended brushes with round filaments. Some cheaper brushes have filaments with a cross-section resembling an X. "The paint can dry in the indentations," he said.
No flagging: A few circumstances call for brushmakers to omit flagging the ends of a synthetic filament. Feathery flags, for example, don't pick up viscous coatings very well. Otherwise, flagging should be de rigueur.
Flagging should be evident to the naked eye, but other filament qualities might not. Painters should look for brushes with the words "tapered, solid and round" stamped on the handle.
The glue:Brush filaments are set in a bed of epoxy glue. As you might expect, the quality and performance of the glue varies from manufacturer to manufacturer. Rubberset's Babkowski said some low-grade glues break down when exposed to solvents, causing filaments to fall out.
"You can have great bristles, a good ferrule, the proper handle," said Corona's Waksman. "But bad epoxy, and the whole thing falls apart."
Painting contractor Bill Seelye of Peoria, IL, said he suspected bad glue was the culprit in a batch of defective China bristle brushes that he bought from a travelling salesman. "As soon as we put them in paint, they started shedding their bristles," he said. "After two or three days, there wasn't much left of them."
The ferrule: The ferrule is the wrap-around sheet of metal that holds the bristles to the handle. Because the metal comes into frequent contact with water, the ferrule's rust resistance is paramount. Top-grade brushes have ferrules made of stainless steel. At the bottom end are ferrules made with tin-plated steel. With these, scratches and dents easily turn into rust spots, and before you know it, the rust works its way into the filaments. "It will wind up on the wall as dark streaks," said Reighard.
Brushes get banged around a lot, sometimes more than they should. Painters knock them against their shoe to shake out solvent or pound nails with them. Poorly-built ferrules will loosen under this punishment, and the brush head may wobble as a result ÷ not exactly conducive to precise painting.
On a contractor-grade brush, the ferrule is nailed to the handle, often with ribbed nails. When they make a throwaway brush, however, manufacturers merely crimp the ferrule to the handle.
Spacers: Spacers, or space plugs, in the heel of the brushing material serve several purposes ÷ tightening the bristles inside the ferrule, improving taper, and perhaps most importantly, creating open areas than can hold extra paint.
Spacers need to repel water and stand up to solvents, because if they deteriorate and fall out, the whole brush begins to disintegrate. Brush manufacturers intent on durability use spacers fashioned from stained wood. The cheapskate route is stained cardboard, which isn't as hardy.
Sometimes manufacturers will cheat on the amount of filament in the brush by putting in unusually large spacers. However, the spacers can't be too small, lest the resulting paint reservoirs be undersized.
The handle: Contractors prefer wooden handles on their brushes, said Dean Robertson of Wooster, because "they don't slip around in their hands when they get wet."
Not all wood, though, is created equal when it comes to handles. Manufacturers who cater to contractors use hardwoods like beech and maple because they don't soak up much water or solvent. Shoddier handles often are made with porous softwoods from tropical rain forests. As the wood absorbs water and then dries out, it expands and contracts, loosening the nails and stretching the ferrule. The head of the brush may become loose, or the handle may fall off. Expansion and contraction also may cause the handle to split where the nail is.
The keeper: Cheap brushes come in transparent plastic bags. Quality brushes come in a cardboard "keeper" or wrapper that protects the filaments. The best keepers are tapered to preserve the shape of the brush.
Many brushes marketed to homeowners come in keepers that allow a shopper to finger the product. Packages for contractor-grade brushes often make inspection more difficult.
"A guy usually buys professional brushes by name reputation," said Reighard. "He trusts that brush, so he doesn't even have to open it."
In an age where voters don't trust politicians, subcontractors don't trust primes, and bankers trust nobody, it's nice to know painters can still trust their brushes ÷ or at least the ones that have earned it.