Paintbrushes

I recently asked a varnish manufacturer whether they recommended natural bristle or the foam brushes which many seem to use. Their answer was "neither, use synthetic brushes".

I used relatively cheap ones from ToolSatan

The only issue I found was having a wide and a narrow one on the go at the same time, is the one that had been resting went a bit "hedge-hoggy" from the bristles clumping into groups as it dried a little.

It looks like getting anything else easily (high street shed) isn't that easy in any case (which was why I asked here).

Cool.

Understood.

As it happens, I'm going there now anyway so I'll get a couple, thanks. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

p.s. I wonder why this message (or reply) didn't show up here on Agent / VM but is visible on TB / ES?

I just use Poundland and throw them away.

Yes, you seem to like the idea of doing a $hit job and throwing things away ... like our future ... ;-)

The point of the question (that whooshed you of course) wasn't 'how beast to deal with a used paintbrush' but what design of brush is likely to give the best results with yacht varnish (and the chances are that won't be a Poundland brush, at least from my experience of them so far).

Thanks for playing though. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

Just clean and re-use brushes and they stop 'shedding' quite quickly. It's the major reason that I clean brushes rather than binning them after use as so many people seem to do nowadays.

Works OK for me with yacht or floor varnish. The only time I use an expensive brush is with wet edging cellulose.

... and the major reason (in my experience) for not doing that is that new brushes (cheap or expensive) shed bristles but if you clean and re-use them they get better and better from that point of view.

I would *prefer* they didn't shed at all Chris and I've since bought some (Harris NoLoss) to try that guarantee they don't shed.

Yup, with the exception of the 'disposable' brushes I use for laying up fibreglass, I typically try to clean all my brushes. However, if you use something that takes quite a bit of cleaning (say in acetone), I'm not sure if the adhesive use to bind the bristles in the first place is always resistant to such. Then on the next use you get the bristles falling out in chunks. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

I'm now trying to work out why on earth you're using oil based varnish. It's obviously not for historical accuracy, and the two pot stuff lasts many times longer.

Andy

Well, you could ask Andy. ;-)

Nope ...

I've no experience of the two pot stuff so can't really comment on that but whilst I might be able to use something like that on some of the parts (rudder / thwarts etc), because it's a folding boat and the hull bends quite a bit between flat and ready to go, the builders actually recommend a varnish that is supposed to be more flexible than even many std oil based varnishes?

That said, my current job is working on the dagger board casing and I should imagine that wouldn't flex that much in use so if two pot is particularly hard wearing, that and the dagger board itself might appreciate it? ;-)

Cheers, T i m