I believe I posted this several years ago but it may be worth repeating for those who did not see it. Most of us at one time or another have ruined a favorite brush by either leaving it improperly cleaned or having it mess up the hair by falling out of the brush box and bending the hairs out of shape. There is a how-to on the Mack Brush website that explains how to do this and I recently put it to the test. Someone had donated three old Mack stripers to my collection that had been sitting somewhere with the hairs folded over more than 90 degrees. These would probably work well if you were painting around corners but for regular striping they are useless. I began my resurrection by carefully suspending just the hair of the brushes in a can of lacquer thinner. MEK can also be used but be careful not to soak the binding as it may soften the coating holding the hairs and start the brush shedding. Once any material in the hair has been softened,remove the brush and lay it flat on a hard surface;preferably glass.Using an old toothbrush,carefully brush the hair from the hilt to the point to remove any softened paint or preservative. A good thing to use for this is a brush designed to clean dentures;it has a regular brush side and on top a smaller shaped brush for cleaning in between teeth. This side is particularly good for getting close to the root of the brush hairs. After drying the brush thoroughly,take a couple drops of dish washing liquid(Dawn;or the equivalent)and gently work it into the brush hairs moving from heel to point and shaping the brush until it is straight and the liquid starts to gel. When it is dried to the point that the brush hairs stay straight carefully set it aside for a few days. After it has set for awhile take the brush and rinse out the dishwashing liquid under a stream of of warm water;being careful not to get the binding overly wet. This applies mostly to newer brushes which use a water-based sizing on the wrap. Dry carefully and see how the brush hairs lay now. If they are straight you can proceed to getting the brush ready for use again. I usually dip the brush hairs in oil(I use a mix of Marvel Mystery Oil and a/c compressor oil) and siuspend the brush hair up for awhile to allow the oil to "wick" into the binding. when you clean the brush for use,the oil will usually remain inside to keep paint from entering and hardening;thus destroying the brush. If the brush hair still exhibits a set,repeat the process until they are straight. It may take a couple soakings and settings but they will eventually come straight. The pictures I am posting show the stages I went through to straighten what appear to be totally destroyed brushes.The last two pictures are of a table top I striped with one of the brushes.
The Mack brushes were(and still are to a certain extent)made of pure wolinska which is Siberian squirrel hair.One of the reasons that the brushes are so expensive is that the squirrels have to be trapped in the wild.They tried raising them in captivity and they didn't thrive.The striping brushes are basically made from the hair at the base of the tail which is where the hair is long enough and of the proper consistency.Other brushes are made from the rest of the hair where length isn't as critical. Some newer brushes are made with a lesser grade of hair and some are purely synthetic. With the advent of urethane based paints it is almost essential that a synthetic hair brush be used as the solvents in the urethanes attack the natural hair(mostly drying out the natural oils)and make them very brittle. I have many older striping brushes(some close to a hundred years old)and the feel of them when painting is a lot different from newer ones.I like to use larger brushes(my normal brush for straight lines is an old #3)as they will pull a line of both wide and thin widths and hold a tremendous amount of paint.
That first picture kinda brings a tear to your eye, don't it? Definitely looks like "dead squirrel parts tied to the end of a stick". Thanx for passing this along. Never thought about them using anything water-based for the binding.
The Jalopy Journal
