Start here if you don`t know where to begin on your next housing painting project.
Invest in Your Paint Brush
Though it may be tempting to go with a cheap paint
brush for your next project, resist. The best brushes have
considerable price tags, but they also have very long lives
and are some of the smartest investments you can make when
giving your walls or furniture a new coat of color.
Paint and Finishing Brush
The lowly paintbrush: We’ve known about it since preschool days.
Paintbrushes were great fun in kindergarten, too, though for a lot
of us they’ve become less enjoyable as the universe of painting tasks
has grown by leaps and bounds. For anyone who lives in an antique,
wood-frame house, the paintbrush is rarely out of mind or far from reach.
The paintbrush is, like so many simple tools, more complicated than it seems.
The shape of the wooden handle, for example, is comfortable and efficient—and
not by accident, because it has evolved over many centuries to its present
contoured shape. It suits the working hand, the fingers and thumb holding the
broad end (the stock), the other end fitting into the fork formed by the thumb
and forefinger. The paint-absorbing filling isn’t merely clamped in the metal ring
(the ferrule) that connects the brush to its handle. Before the ferrule is wrapped
the handle and brush, the filling is dipped in a setting compound, oftem made of
epox, that binds the bristles together.
Actually, the word bristles is sometimes the wrong one. Bristles occur in nature:
They are the hair of hogs. But many brushes use other materials, both natural and
synthetic.
The best brushes consist of individual filaments that,
like a hog bristle, taper toward the end, then split, forming what are known
as flags. The flags help hold the paint and to spread it evenly. Some synthetic
bristles, in addition to tapering and splitting, are textured as well.
Buying Brushes. I’m no longer surprised at how much the best brushes cost.
Having learned a long time ago that for high-quality jobs they are essential,
what I’m now surprised by is how long good brushes last and how much easier
they are to use than cheap brushes that seem to self-destruct halfway through a job.
Before you buy a brush, inspect it carefully. The bristles should be flexible,
but stiff enough that they spring quickly back after you spread them between
your fingers. Make sure there are no manufacturing defects, like a poorly
attached ferrule or uneven trimming of the brush tip.
A quality brush will, if properly cared for, last from one job to
the next. It will spread the paint more easily and evenly, carry
paint from the bucket to the surface being painted, and is less
likely to leave telltale bristles behind to mar your perfect paint job.