How to choose a flat flute brush?

With all the variety of construction tools, especially those that are necessary for painting and plastering, a flat brush takes one of the most popular places.

Content:

• Varieties and their scope
• Features of Flute Brushes
• How to prepare a flute brush for work?
• Tips & Tricks
• Natural or synthetic bristles?
• Artificial brushes

Varieties and their scope

Painting work is most often carried out by one of the following types of brushes:

1. Fly - is large, designed to a large extent for processing large and complex surfaces. Traditionally available in two main sizes - 60 and 65 mm, the length of the bristles is 100 mm. It is not suitable for high-quality painting of surfaces, it is often used for whitewashing the ceiling or walls.
2. Maklovitsa - one of the largest brushes, is made of rough horse bristles. It can be round or rectangular. It is used for applying a primer, wallpaper glue, whitewashing on walls, it is not intended for decorative work.
3. The brush fleit is the most popular and sought-after variety, has a flat design, with a width of 20 mm and up to 100-160 mm. They are made both from inexpensive synthetic fiber, and from natural bristles, or, for example, from badger hair. The most famous manufacturers in the CIS is the Vyatka factory. A flat brush is created by attaching a bristle with a metal frame and putting on a wooden handle. Fleitz is a universal brush that is used for a wide profile of painting work, from painting, to applying stencils or drawing on surfaces.
4. Radiators have a curved shape for painting surfaces that are difficult to access.
5. Panel form round shape, small diameter on handles of various lengths. They are used for processing flat and long strips both on the surface of walls or ceilings, and decorative panels.

As you can see, each tool has a highly specialized field of application, for the rational use of paint and varnish materials and time. However, most people consider the “classic” brushes to be flute. Most likely, this is due to the versatility of the tool, which equally well handles flat, complex surfaces, pipes, squares, corners, works well in areas.

Features of Flute Brushes

Painting works using flute brushes are carried out with high quality. This is due to the small long bristles, reliable fixation of the pile with a metal plate.

A flat brush can absorb enough paint to make too frequent strokes, but at the same time eliminates the appearance of smudges. Fluteva can work in all directions, without worrying about the quality of the coating or the spread of splashes around the painter, as it can be when using radiator brushes or macroflora.

Flute brushes are very comfortable in the hand thanks to the use of flat and ergonomic handles. This reduces the fatigue of the painter, allows you to choose for yourself the brush with which you will be comfortable working throughout the working day.

Professional painters always have several flute tools for various tasks in their arsenal - large, small, thick, thin, with various shapes of handles.

You can also buy inexpensive products from the Vyatka company, or products from well-known global brands such as Platinum for high-precision work.

On rough surfaces, such as not planed boards, bricks or concrete, the bristles “erase” very quickly. The bristles catch on burrs, cavities in concrete and are pulled out of the flute clamps. After a large volume of bristles is lost, the flute brush begins to crumble even more intensely, leaving a huge number of bristles on the finished surface, which reduce all the painter’s efforts to zero.

How to prepare a flute brush for work?

Before using the flute brush, it must be correctly selected. Tools with coarse, elastic bristles will leave more even strips, however, the color will be less saturated, due to the small amount of paint remaining. Soft bristles on the contrary - leave a lot of paint, which will inevitably lead to smudges and streaks. Therefore, for most tasks, you should choose a medium-elastic flute brush, and if you need accurate eyeliner with a paint, use an elastic brush.

The bristle length is also important. Too long is not convenient in operation, since it will not make smears exactly, it absorbs too much paint. A short one will require many times more frequent dipping in paint, which will quickly deplete the painter. It is better to use brushes with a short pile pointwise, in small areas, where you need accurate eyeliner.

Flute brushes from the store, contrary to the misconceptions of many, are not prepared for use. They should be washed in soapy water and dried well. This is done in order to wash away residual grease, dust, broken bristles, which can ruin the quality of the processed surface. In addition, straightened, swollen bristles will be more malleable, “take” paint well, paint evenly and cleanly.

Tips & Tricks

1. Quite often, when buying a new brush, you can find protruding hairs. In no case can they be pulled out, since this will inevitably lead to the destruction of the entire pile. If you cut the hair with ordinary scissors, areas with greater tension appear due to the greater thickness of the hair. As a result, furrows from coarse bristles can be seen on an absolutely even and smooth surface. Never level the brushes with fire, as is customary for not very experienced painters, as you destroy the natural structure of the hair. The best option to trim is to work with a brush for 5 minutes on a concrete surface. This will make the surface of the bristles the same, at the same time and drain off the excess thickness of the bristles.
2. If there is such an opportunity when buying flute brushes, gently pull on a bunch of bristles. If you still have fragments of pile or bristles in your hands - the brush is not high-quality due to a loosely fitting fleet to the handle.
3. Try also to bend the bristles to one side and the other when buying. If traces of a bristle fracture are noticeable - refuse to buy a flute brush - it is not of high quality, the bristles are overdried, and the cost savings will result in the cost of repainting the walls.
4. Be sure to clean it after each operation with a brush. This will help her last a long time. It is forbidden to put the tool in paint, as many do, it is also impossible to wipe the bristles strongly - this is useless. The optimal cleaning procedure is as follows: squeeze the brush well on the can of paint, rinse in a white spirit in a solvent, dry well.
5. If you want to temporarily suspend work, it is forbidden to throw the tool into White Spirit, it is better to moisten a clean rag with solvent, wrap around the brush and put everything in a plastic bag. In this way, tools can be stored for up to several days.If you left a brush immersed in a solvent, this would inevitably lead to damage to natural and synthetic fibers, would cause the swelling of the wooden handle.

Natural or synthetic bristles?

A high-quality painting tool can serve its owner for more than one month, even with intensive use. To do this, it is worth choosing and servicing it right after painting. A key factor affecting the quality and cost of flute products remains bristles. There are three types of products:

• with natural bristles;
• with synthetic bristles;
• with mixed bristles.

Products with natural fibers are one of the most expensive. They have excellent paint output, durable, evenly distribute the paint on the surface. Another advantage of natural bristles is their high resistance even to strong solvents. This allows you to extend service life, simplifies maintenance.

As bristles, pork bristles, badger wool, horse are used. Due to the natural structure of the hair, the bristles have thin split ends and a thick elastic base. During operation, the hair is sharpened, and the tips remain thin and supple all the time.

Products made from natural bristles vary in color, stiffness, elasticity and length of the pile. Products of the premium segment are usually black and have high wear resistance. Cheaper goods are light, with an uneven distribution of bristles under the fold.

Interestingly, in order to achieve increased elasticity, the brushes are boiled in special solutions at high temperatures. This allows natural fibers to straighten. The highest quality and most expensive products are obtained after the third test.

Natural brushes are used to work with oil paints, latex and acrylic compounds because of their aggressive composition.

When choosing, simply press your fingers on the bristles, it should not be too coarse and too soft. You should feel the bristles resilient, but the finger should not completely fall through the volume.

Professionals choose folded bristles made from natural bristles because of the balance between maximum ink absorption and surface finish. This allows you to significantly reduce the time allocated for painting.

Mixed brushes, as a rule, have more than 60% natural bristles, and only 40% synthetic ones.

Artificial brushes

The main advantage of such seam brushes is their low cost. A brush from Vyatka usually costs less than $ 5, while natural fiber will require 5-7 times more costs. Due to the use of modern synthetic materials, the bristles of a synthetic brush can have increased absorbency, which many craftsmen like, because it reduces the working time. The third advantage can be considered increased wear resistance, which is important when working on such surfaces as wood, concrete, plaster.

The main field of application of synthetic brushes is the application of paints with increased fluidity. Natural pork bristles cannot absorb such materials at a sufficient level to surface finish.

If you do not know which brush to choose for a particular type of work, be sure to consult when buying from a seller or experienced painters. This will not only save your time, but also improve the quality of the result.