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How to fix a paintbrush

No matter how well you look after and care for your brushes, it's only natural that the fibres will start to wear down over time. Whether working with thick oil paint or thin watercolour, and cleaning your paintbrushes after every use, the hair will start to pull apart and bend away from each other. This can have a huge effect on your painting as worn-down brushes can create unwanted textures and effects that could ruin your next piece of art. This journal highlights how you can revive and fix your old brushes and bring them back to life, helping you save money and reduce the amount of waste.

Causes of damaged brushes

Brush hairs can start to fray from use alone. It’s only natural that over time hairs start to pull apart and not pull to a sharp point, but there are other factors contributing to hair damage:

Not cleaning your brushes

Leaving your paintbrushes to dry without cleaning them can cause the paint to splay and bend the hair. We recommend that you clean your brushes straight after using them to stop this happening.

Over cleaning brushes

Over cleaning or aggressive cleaning can actually wear down and bend your brush hair, especially with sensitive natural hair or softer synthetics. When cleaning your brushes, be careful and gently knead out any paint.

Using the incorrect solvents can also weaken paintbrush hair and make them more prone to damage.

Brush storage

Either during your painting or cleaning processes when you are not using your brushes, ensure that they are laid on a flat surface. Storing a brush upside down in water uses the weight of the brush to bend the hair.

Storing the brush upright after cleaning allows the colour to run back down into the ferrule. Once this water evaporates, the paint dries and splays the hairs. Unfortunately, because paint in the ferrule is inaccessible, the brush will now be beyond repair.

Restoring your brush

The first thing that you need to do is remove any old paint from the brush. You can read our blog on brush cleaning for more information.

Reshaping synthetic paintbrushes

Bring a pot of water to the boil and submerge all the hair for 10-15 seconds (Tip. You can shake the brush to ensure that the water penetrates all the hairs). The more bent the hair, the longer you want to hold it under water. Following this, gently reshape the brush either with your fingertips or by rolling the brush on a cloth to bring it back to a point. Finally, lay the brush down flat to dry.

Reshaping natural hair paintbrushes

This process is similar to synthetic brush reshaping, although natural hair is much more sensitive to boiling water. Instead, use simmering water and only hold the tip of the hair under water. The rest of the process in the same: gently reshape the brush either with your fingertips or by rolling the brush on a cloth to bring it back to a point. Finally, lay the brush down flat to dry.

Other tips

For any reluctant hairs, you can pick these with a pair of tweezers. Ensure that you’re picking these as close to the ferrule as possible- you want to pull the hair out of the glue, not snapping the hair!

Throw away your brush caps! These are only to ensure that the brush head remains intact during transport and should not be replaced once the brush has been used as you can trap and damage hairs.

Remember that paintbrush hair is very delicate, so there is only a certain number of times that you can reshape and repoint them. But this guide should help to extend the life of your materials.

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