Stop Buying Paint Brushes — The $1 Habit That Makes One Last 20 Years

My name is Isaac Miller. I am Amish, and I have kept a blacksmith shop in Lancaster County for thirty-two years. I have painted more iron than most house painters paint houses, near enough with the same three brushes. You have a coffee can in the garage with seven or eight dead brushes in it. You rinsed every one at the sink. You did the work. And come the next job, you are back at the rack paying twelve ninety-seven. Brushes don't die from use. They die in the twenty minutes after. Where the bristles go up into the steel ferrule there is a hollow called the heel. Paint wicks up into it the way lamp oil climbs a wick, and no rinsing reaches it. It dries there layer by layer until you have a rooster tail. Fill the heel with clean water or mineral spirits first, and the paint has nowhere to climb. Buy one good two-and-a-half-inch angled sash brush for eighteen to twenty-two dollars. Wet the heel before the first dip. Wash it with dish soap, comb it, spin it, condition it and wrap it. That runs about a dollar a year. Three cheap brushes a year comes to seven hundred dollars over twenty years. My way comes to forty-two. In this video I show you how to pick a good brush by its flagged tips, how to wet the heel, how to wash it like a dog's paw, how to wrap it so it holds its shape, how to settle and reuse mineral spirits, and how to bring a hard brush back with hot vinegar. I also tell you where it falls short. Wetting the heel keeps a brush alive, but it does not raise the dead. A brush rock-hard for five years is usually firewood, and restorer saves about half. WHAT YOU WILL NEED One 2 1/2 inch angled sash brush, $18 to $22 Brush comb, $2 Dollar-store hair conditioner and kraft paper, about $1 a year Mineral spirits for oil paint, $8 a can White vinegar Brush restorer for the worst ones, $8 a quart A WORD OF CAUTION Use mineral spirits and linseed oil with a door open. Lay oily rags flat on concrete, never balled in a bin. A wadded linseed rag can heat itself and catch fire. Subscribe if you want more of the old shop knowledge that used to be written down and taught. #paintbrush #brushcare #amish #blacksmith #diy #painting #frugalliving #homemaintenance