Your idea to use epoxy will work.

As far as what may be causing this? If you have been leaving your brushes in solvent (immersed past the ferrule) while you work, this may do it. I don’t know about you, but I frequently work for 8 hours at a time. Having a brush standing in solvent this way will eventually loosen the ferrule.

I find this happens with waterbased paints more often. Try keeping your brushes out of the solvent as much as possible. With watercolors and oils, this is easy since oils stay wet and watercolors are watersoluable after dry. With acrylics, rinse and wipe clean as you work, and lay the brush down, outside of your solvent tub.

If you haven’t done any of these things, I’m stumped! :confused:

Sara

Do you tap your brushes hard when getting excess water off? Are you especially rough with your brushes when painting or cleaning? Only a handful of my brushes have done what you are describing, and they are the ones I set aside for acrylics. I have two brushes do this after I finished a mural project in acrylics in which I had to have my brushes in water most of the time.

Sorry I’m not more help.

Sara

My paint brushes are plagued with getting loose ferrules. I think it’s the humidity & dry heat shift up here in the north country winters that is shrinking the wood brush handles enough to loosen up from the metal ferrules.

I try to take good care of them — I wash them after a day’s use & “hang” them brush side down to dry so the water won’t drip into the center of the brushes.

Any suggestions to prevent this? I’m using a 5-minute epoxy to try to repair. The handle doesn’t come all the way out, so the epoxy just kind of goes around the handle. It happens to both cheapo & the most expensive brushes.

Thanks,

Andy Frost
Madison, NH

Hi Andy

I have never fixed brushes cuz I hadnt had any mess up yet.

I would suggest how ever you go to a hobby shop that caters to model airplane building.

There is a glue called “Cyano” comes in THIN ,MEDIUM and THICK.. I would suggest you get the Thin and Medium cyano then just wick it in between the ferrul and wood. This stuf is similar to crazy glue but a tad thicker. It dries hard as rock and impervious to oil water or anything else.

We use Castor oil and Nitro Methanol for fuel and that doesnt touch Cyano and thats what the model planes are mostly built with. Epoxy is too heavy.

Anyway give that a try. I am pretty sure it will wick right down inside and not hangon the edge. Epoxy is too thick. You thin the Epoxy tho with just ordinary alchohol. Works fine. Try that first actually Thin it down.

Johnnie

had the same problem with my brand new kolinsky brushes – i solved the problem by letting them dry all the way and then putting a bead of superglue all the way around the edge of the ferrule.

In a forum about using discovering/using cool stuff, I found this tip: push acrylic paint inside the ferule and let it dry! Seemed like a smart idea to me, since someone gave me some to play with when I was at university, and I once let some dry on the paintbox palette… they turn into hard, utterly immovable lumps of plastic (who woulda thought?!).

When the ferrules are put on by the manufacturer they are crimped in place so, you can try to duplicate the process by putting a dimple on four sides of the ferrule using a small hammer and a blunted center punch or even a small rat-tail file to create the dimple. The harder you tap – the deeper the dimple. This has worked for me lately and you won’t have to buy glue every time a ferrule comes loose.

Hello folks, I’m a newbie to this forum as well as to artistry, so what I’m about to say is as a “newbie”. I received four sets of professional grade synthetic brushes made by Creative Mark as a Christmas gift, that my ladyfriend purchased from Jerry’s Artarama online. I just checked them out today, to find that most of the brand new never used brushes have extremely loose heads/ferrules, and I’m wondering if this is a norm for new artist brushes, or if these brushes are just faulty/very poorly made? All I know from prior water coloring experience when I was a kiddo, is that the cheapo brushes back then had tight ferrules with no wobble. Are professional artist brush heads supposed to wobble loose when new, or should I try to figure out a way to send them back to Jerry’s Artarama for a replacement or refund? Best regards to all!!! Gerald Benson aka Olaf