Since I don't take on high spec decorating jobs I tend to use the cheapest brushes & bin them after the job. Works fine for the sort of jobs I do.
I have been using the B&Q sets of 5 at £1.98. Bought a set of 5 from Screwfix for about £2.35 and they are so much better than the B&Q ones its unreal.
The other thing to bear in mind is the disposal of the cleaning materials. I have a septic tank, and I don't want to put White Spirit or Brush Restorer into it - even diluted. It seems to eat dilute emulsion OK though - at least in brush/roller cleaning quantities.
As it is, I have lots of old milk bottles (Sainsbury's plastic) with used white spirit settling - then I recover the white spirit and bin the bottle with the residue. (Yes, I know that it's going to landfill, thanks, but only after serving for six months on the front-line)
I just use premium brushes for gloss topcoat and varnish.
Probably cost you 39.5 pence to post this message then. If someone in China makes a brush for 10 pence, do you feel justified in throwing it away? Where does it all end? Should I throw away Ikea plates because it's not economic to wash them up?
Real painters (in which camp I count myself) don't often bother cleaning brushes, unless you're talking about wall brushes. When I did it professionally, paint brushes (used for gloss, eggshell or other oil-based paints) were simply kept in a paint kettle, stored in water. When you needed one, you took it out, shook out the water, wiped it with a rag, and just started painting. Most glossing or eggshell finishes were white or variants thereof, so small colour variations were invisible to the naked eye. Obviously if someone wanted a coloured finish, that needed a clean brush. Most of my brushes were never cleaned - I binned them when they wore out.
The other thing (which is probably not an issue if you're not doing high-spec jobs, though I'm sure your clients would sooner you did a good job rather than a bad job) is that all brushes work better once they're slightly worn - especially for cutting in. Also, new cheap brushes shed hair like a long-haired dog in summer, but if your clients don't mind....
I got soem decent brushes from Homebase recently, made by Harris with synthetic bristles. The name escapes me, something about not losing bristles (no loss?). They also cost less than three quid (for four) and I bought them to use with varnish. Excellent finish and I didn't have to go back picking up stray bristles from the finished surface.
I don't know why not. Even if they were as cheap as paper plates and delivered to my door free of charge, I still wouldn't throw them away. I guess that's making decisions based on something other than bottom line economics.
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