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Post by merlin on Jul 7, 2007 15:29:50 GMT
OK as most know i used to do models years ago and recently came back to it . now I'm not saying i was good or infact am good now lol , but I'm trying to buy things that will last . so anyways recently Ive bought a flippin' good set of brushes and i want to keep em good , so i,d like to ask the more knowledgeable of you the best way to care for my brushes , cleaning , storage anything really thanks
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Post by Don Cabriolet on Jul 7, 2007 16:19:08 GMT
Brushes do best stood up in in a heavy old jam jar or similar, bristles upwards. You should try to get brush covers for all of them - I've saved all my old ones down the years and still use them. Try not to get paint up to the metal ferrule at it will splay the hairs when it dries, and build up. I wash my brushes in two different kinds of brush wash - a 50% - 50% mix of water and windscreen washer fluid with a few drops of washing up liquid for acrylic paints and in neat white spirit for enamel, wipe them on kitchen towel and then both lots get a wash again in a clean jar of neat windscreen washer fluid, with another careful wipe. Every now and then the brushes get a treat with a drop of washing up liquid carefully worked into the bristles and washed out in soapy water with a windscreen washer finish. I make a rule to keep only one brush on the go at a time and wash it before moving onto another colour. I also keep changing my water and white spirit washing bottles, I collect the small glass jars of jam that are carefully scavenged at every hotel stop during the year I rotate my brushes - I've got a few of each now, not all very expensive to be sure, but they are all carefully chosen in the shop to have a tight ferrule, a pointed shape with no stray hairs and if possible a plastic brush cover. Brushes are dipped in starch at the factory so the shape you see may not be the same once you start washing it out. The bigger cheaper brushes are kept for drybrushing - I trim the bristles shorter to give a flat shape. Games Workshop do an enormous brush called the Tank Brush which you might like to look at . Oh, and I keep sets of brushes, one for Acrylic and one for enamel. and I never mix them. All I need now is the skill to match the quality of the tools
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Post by merlin on Jul 7, 2007 17:35:52 GMT
don't know if you have a Wilkinson's near you tread , but i got those small jam jars from there , they cost me 10p each so i cleared the shelf lol . with the price of glass storage jars they were very cheap alternatives
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Post by Don Cabriolet on Jul 10, 2007 17:10:24 GMT
don't know if you have a Wilkinson's near you tread , but i got those small jam jars from there , they cost me 10p each so i cleared the shelf lol . with the price of glass storage jars they were very cheap alternatives What - you mean I don't need to go to the Holiday Inn every year at SMW just to top up me glass jars
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Post by akesterton on Jul 13, 2007 20:02:07 GMT
Another idea to store brushes - bristles down. Take a large jar, at least as tall as your longest brush. Cut a hole in a jar lid - wrap some foam strip into tight concentric circles and insert into the hole in the lid. You then put the brushes in to the foam and put the lid back on the jar. Keeps the dust off, and let's gravity keep the bristles pointing the right way Not sure if you can visualize this from the poor description.... anthony
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Post by Bri on Mar 23, 2008 14:28:10 GMT
Yep, clear as day. I think I remember that tip from an Eagle annual or some such! Me, I reckon brushes die primarily of cleaning. Say what you like, but what with stirring extra thinners into the enamel as you go it's impossible to keep the stuff out of the ferrule. Wipe; roll the brush against the inside of the mucky-turps bottle, then wipe again; repeat; finish with a drop of clean turps and a further wipe. That's as much as I like to do. The downside is I have to keep dedicated brushes for clear, yellow and white - anything else can cope with a bit of seepage from the last use. It seems to work, some of my brushes have got whiskers on. Regards, Bri.
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Post by foxy on Mar 24, 2008 0:35:12 GMT
Glad to hear whiskers are in fashion.
'But ',Bri is right.
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Post by HarrierOne on Jul 29, 2008 22:12:26 GMT
This may help; something I wrote a few years ago for the SIG and the South London Scale Model Group's Mag...
Brush Painting Hints-n-Tips by Nick Greenall
I've been using paint brushes to paint models with for years and will probably never use an airbrush. Luckily, so far, I've never really had problems with streaky finishes, at least after a few coats. Here are my tips, which seem to work PDG and I'd persist before hitting the shops with your plastic in search of airbrush heaven.
BRUSHES Get the best quality artists' water colour brushes you can. For large surfaces always go for a flat brush with a squared tip. Even on a 24th Sea Harrier the largest brush I used was 3/8". Flat 3/4" and 3/16" brushes do most of my 48th scale stuff WW2 and modern. [For a look at what these can do, check out my articles in Model Aircraft Monthly: A tale of two Mossies (Dec-04); Mustangles Pt2 (May-05); A Lancaster called ‘Emily’ (Jan-06) - apologies for the plugs fellas!] For details you cannot beat a range of round tipped brushes from 4 to 0000 size. Go sable wherever possible.
PREPARATION Always wash the model with a thin washing-up liquid solution dabbing dry with cotton buds and then giving it a good brushing off with a clean large flat brush. Daft as it sounds, air-drying in hard water areas can leave small lime-scale deposits on the model, which you only notice after the paint is on.
PRIMING I don't!!! I know many do but with enamel paints these days having such a fine pigment I tend not to do this. Touch and feel and eyesight is used to detect flaws that a primer would highlight. It could be the primer that is giving you the rough surface finish, as primer pigments seem to be larger than "normal" paint pigments, in my experience.
PAINT In my opinion Humbrol enamels are still the best in town for brush painting. I have tried acrylics but have reverted to good old Humbrol. Stir enamels like crazy - a piece of wire on a dremel is good but start slow or else you'll rival your 2yr old (if you have / have had one) at splatter-painting... mainly yourself! In recent years Humbrol have made a lot of their enamels quite thin and they have a finer pigment (to help the airbrush brigade out?). This also helps us brush painters. I still thin my enamels about 10% and often add some pale grey or white to tone them down for scale effect. Xtracolor enamels are OK. I also thin them down by 10%. One problem with them is that some colours seem to take ages to dry - even days! – whilst others can be part dry so quickly that brushing next to them can cause pulling of the original coat.
BRUSH TECHNIQUESl I always aim for several thin coats and only lightly load the brush half way up the stock, always brushing in the direction of airflow. With flat brushes and practice you'll soon get used to the hang of doing wavy RAF camo demarcation lines using the chisel edge to get the curves and filling in along the airflow. To blur edges I go over the demarcation line with a 50:50 mix of the two colours, thinned quite a bit and applied with a fine 00 brush for a line <1/16" (1mm) wide. It works a treat and looks more convincing IMHO than airbrushed feathered edges which are often over-cooked. OK brushes have their limits - Luftwaffe schemes! - never look as good brush painted as airbrushed.
Do NOT be surprised if you have to apply 4 or 5 coats. Recently on a model of 899 Sqn's blue and white Sea Harrier I need 6 thin coats of Xtracolor X030 Roundel Blue - even after 5th the colour looked anything but solid. For white and sky I expect to need 4-5 thin coats.
For large areas - 24th scale wings for example - use a really big brush as you want to make sure you can do one pass over the whole chord of the wing, especially if you have to use Xtraclor as some of those piants do NOT like being disturbed by a new brush stroke being started mere nano-seconds after they have been applied. This one pass over the chord applies to smaller scales too and is one way of reducing any unevenness.
PREP FOR DECALS AND POST-DECAL VARNISHES This is where acrylics come into their own. I always brush a very thin coat of Johnson's Klear onto the model to seal the paint for decalling. Do keep this coat THIN! Quite often on WW2 RAF a/c the result I aim to get before decalling is not gloss but a high satin, if you get my meaning. I have one flat brush I just use for this purpose and nothing else. It is old and has fewer hairs than the new ones so cannot pick up as much Klear as a new brush, lessening the risk of getting too thick a coat. Too thick a coat of Klear gets bubbles in it - these can be brushed out with care - and gets the old dust devil having a laugh at your expense. Even a thin coat of Klear can remove any surface unevenness or streaking that may have appeared in the finish.
After decalling Matt finishes - I tend to use Humbrol Matt Cote, though be warned this does not like the model being handled a lot after it has been applied - it retains some tackiness for years. I apply it using a large flat brush, un-thinned but as a very thin coat. This, on top of the Klear, tends to give a very smooth finish. I have tried the new Xtracylic Flat Varnish but it is two satin for my liking - it is THE perfect satin finish for current RAF/RN aircraft. As with the Klear keep this coat very thin. I know of people who add a flatting agent to Klear very successfully for airbrushing, but have never tried this with a brush myself. Satin finishes - See above. Gloss finishes - Stick with another very thin coat of Klear is my advice.
CLEANING BRUSHES Removing Klear - cold water and washing up liquid. I tend to put a blob of washing-up liquid on the bristles and gently rub it in from stock to tip, then rinse the brush out thoroughly under the tap with gentler rubbing. Reshape the bristles whilst they are damp and wrap a small piece of tissue around them to stop them splaying whilst drying. If I’ve not been quick enough with getting the Klear off, then using some neat concentrated car screen-wash is a good tip to dissolve the acrylic. Removing enamel - Before following the above steps, though using warm water this time, I always give the brush a good rinse in Polyclens (DIY brush cleaning fluid), then put a blob of washing-up liquid on the bristles whilst they have a good load of Polyclens and rubbing it in to get a nice Polyclens/washing-up liquid goo in the bristles before rinsing it out.
A good cleaning and care regime is worth the effort. After use I always wipe as much of the paint out of the brush as I can by folding some tissue over it, squeezing and drawing the brush out; this may be repeated a few times. Then it's into the Polyclens for a swish around - do NOT leave it standing in there for hours or even minutes, that's the surest way of starting flare. With the brush still full of Polyclens it's a dab of washing up liquid applied and then under the tap.
After washing take time to reshape the bristles - rolling a piece of tissue around them can help with shaders, whilst some spittle and the plastic protector helps for round brushes. For drying - if it's summer a nice warm window ledge or patio has them dry in no time, or in winter the top of a radiator works great.
I'll admit I do not follow this routine with anything under size 2. As these brushes are used for detail painting, which often happens all at once, I just use the tissue and polyclens between colours. However, I do give them the full clean at the end of the session!
On the subject of which brushes to buy, here are my recommendations based on easy availability currently within the UK...
Flat shaders The best I've come across so far are Daler-Rowney's Aquafine series - they have a sky blue handle. The sizes I use most (for 48th scale) are 4, 6, 8 and 10. These brushes really seem to keep their shape very well, the shaders do not flare out like a fan as some other makes do, e.g. Pro Arte. Windsor & Newton's Cotman brushes (metallic blue handles) are also good. They tend to size their shaders by fractions of an inch. Price wise, I picked up a new Aquafine size 6 and size 8 for 7.60GBP in total at a local artshop in Streatham a few months ago.
Round brushes Again the Daler-Rowney Aquafine series round brushes, sizes 1, 2 and 3 are very good. When it comes to sizes 0 to 0000, then Windsor & Newton Cotman series I've found to be very good.
Believe it or not I can manage with one of each brush size except 0, 00 and 0000 round and a size 6 shader, where I have a couple of each. Old round or flat brushes from size 4 down are relegated for dry-brushing and weathering duties. Never use new brushes for that, it'll kill them in no time!
So, you don't have to break the bank. For starters, for 48th scale models, I'd go for
ONE of each Flat shaders: 4, 8, 10. Round: 1, 2, 3.
TWO of each Round: 0, 00 and 0000. Flat shader: 6.
Build up your collection over time as you find you need extras.
Do examine the brushes before you buy them, take off the protective sleeves and stroke them across your finger. Shaders should not splay outwards too much and round brushes should keep their points. If they don't, put them back and find another!
Wishing you many happy years of brush painting!
Cheers,
Nick
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