Cleaning a Pro Arte Sentinel Paintbrush with ABC paintbrush cleaner.

How to Restore Miniature Brushes For Wargaming and Model Making

Ruining a paintbrush will never be the best feeling in the world, especially if it’s your favourite, most expensive brush, so knowing that you are able to restore them will always be a huge relief. Many paintbrushes simply need reshaping or a deep clean to restore them to their full painting capabilities, extending their lifespan and the number of times you have to invest in another one. But how do you restore a damaged miniature paintbrush? 

This blog will help guide you through how to restore any paintbrushes that you have damaged while painting wargaming minis or scale models. We will be talking you through the types of damage that can and can’t be fixed and how many times you can restore the different paintbrushes you may own, while also recommending habits
that will extend your brush longevity.

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Can Paintbrushes Be Fixed?

The main damages to your paintbrushes you will encounter when painting your minis will come in the form of split tips, curled points and splayed bristles. All of which come from using your paint brush too harshly, for example, pressing or scrubbing too hard with your brush against rough or textured surfaces. This is something that brushes like rounded dry brushes are better designed for, but not immune against, and sable, kolinsky, or synthetic brushes will not cope well with. Scrubbing with your brushes will ensure that they lose their shapes and become splayed, rendering them unusable. Using harsh chemicals on soft-haired brushes like sable or kolinsky hair will also damage them, breaking down the natural brush fibres and drying them out, making them brittle or ensuring that they lose their original shapes. 

Your paintbrushes can, however, be restored and helped to last years longer with the proper care and restoration techniques, in some cases. Methods such as reshaping will always help to lengthen the lifespan of brushes which have become slightly splayed or have lost their original points. Conditioning will always help brushes which have dried out and lost their flexibility through time and heavy use. The only times when a brush is beyond saving are when there is either paint in the ferrule or if the bristles have splayed from their base. When this happens, it is often better to invest in a new brush.

Three Pro Ate and ABC paint brushes, Prolon, Imperium and Phalanx arranged next to each other on a wooden surface. There are various wargaming minis surrounding them.

Understanding Paintbrush Types Before Restoring Them

When restoring your brushes, it’s important to understand how different hair types behave, what paints they can be used with and how you should be painting with them. You can then maintain them in a way that protects them and extends their lifespan as much as you can. 

  • Sable and Kolinsky Sable brushes are the softest, highest quality brushes available to you as a wargaming and scale model painter. The bristles are very flexible and have high water retention, but are also extremely delicate. Their quality is unmatched, but you will have to take great care of them to ensure that they last for years and are worth their higher price tag. Many wargaming painters keep sable brushes for detailing aspects of their models, leaving base coat painting and any harsher techniques like weathering and dry brushing to synthetic or dry brushes. This will help you to maintain the sharp point and shape of the sable brush for longer. Using any oil based paints with these paintbrushes is also highly not recommended, the solvents used to clean them off the brushes can damage and weaken the hairs, making them more susceptible to breaking and bending. 

  • Synthetic brushes can withstand solvents and harsh usage better than any sable hair brushes can, but you will still have to follow the proper care techniques to ensure that they can maintain their longevity. Synthetic brushes are made with man-made fibres, usually nylon or polyester, which means that they can be cleaned and restored much more easily than a natural hair brush.
Rinsing off an ABC brushes paintbrush in a water pot, next to an array of paints and miniatures.

How to Restore Brushes

Step 1 - Always ensure you clean your brushes thoroughly when restoring them. All the progress you will make with fixing the brush will be for nothing if there is still dried paint within the bristles. To remove any acrylic paint completely, use a brush soap with lukewarm water, working on softening any dried or drying paint from the bristles. You can work the paint out gently by kneading the brush from the belly towards the tip, stopping any buildup from reaching the brush's ferrule. 

Removing oil-based enamel paint will require you to rinse your brush with a solvent, such as turpentine, swirling the brush around in it until the paint has completely flowed out of the brush. It sometimes helps to have a fresh jar of solvent alongside your initial one to ensure that you have fully removed all of your paint. 

Read more in-depth about the details of cleaning your brushes in our blog: Cleaning Your Brushes: Essential Care for Wargaming and Model Making.

Person reshaping the tip of a Pro Arte Sentinel brush. There is a paint palette, ABC paintbrush cleaner and a paper towel below this.

Step 2 - If the tip or shape of your brush has been damaged, you will have to start to reform and reshape it. This process slightly differs depending on whether you are fixing a synthetic or a natural hair paintbrush. 

  • To reshape synthetic brushes, you will need to use boiling water, holding the tip and only part of the brush's belly in it for 10-15 seconds. You can shake the brush around in the water to ensure that it penetrates all of the hairs, however, the more bent or damaged the hairs are, the longer you are going to have to keep the brush under the water. Afterwards, you can then either use your fingertips or roll the brush on a cloth to restore the point and shape, before laying it down flat to dry. 

  • Natural hairs, like sable and kolinsky, are much more sensitive to boiling water and can become damaged, so using lukewarm water when reshaping these brushes is key. Ensure only the tip of the brush is submerged in the water, as any further can damage your sable hairs more. You can then proceed as you would when reshaping a synthetic brush. Sable and Kolinsky hairs can only be reshaped once or twice, so be careful when you are starting this process.
Two paintbrushes, one unused and the other covered in paint placed on top of a paper towel.

When Can a Brush Not Be Fixed

Unfortunately, there are times when a miniature paintbrush cannot be fixed, and it is better to invest in a new one. However, knowing how to identify this can be key in preventing you from throwing away any perfectly fixable brushes.

  • Paint has hardened inside the ferrule - The ferrule is the metal part of the brush between the bristles and the handle, connecting the two, so if you get paint into this part of your paintbrush, you can destroy the entire brush. If dried paint gradually builds up in the ferrule, it can cause it to stiffen and permanently splay, losing its shape and flexibility. Paint can also cause the glue holding the bristles together to rot and cause them to start to fall out. 

    To prevent this from happening, never pick up paint more than halfway up the hairs of the brush, you can then prevent paint from even entering the ferrule. You can also prevent paint from getting into the ferrule of the brush by never leaving your brushes to soak in water over a long period of time, water can evaporate and leave residual paint behind in the ferrule. 
A ABC Prolon paintbrush with splayed bristles on a wooden background.
  • Severely frayed or broken hairs - If you use a brush too harshly over rough textures like terrain or use them to scrub paint into any part of your models, you will start to see the bristles of your paintbrush fraying or start to break. This will cause your brush to lose its snap and point retention qualities, removing your ability to use it to create any detailing work and start to paint with broken, uneven strokes.  

  • Structural damage to the brush head - Using a brush too harshly can also cause irreversible structural damage to the shape of the brush, causing the bristles to splay from the base and render the shape unfixable and unusable. This can also be caused by using harsh cleaners or chemicals on your softer brushes. For example, kolinsky and sable hair paintbrushes are not suited for use with oil-based enamel paint and the solvents used to clean it. They can damage the structure of the hair and cause it to lose its shape completely, and severely damage the brushes' water retention. 
Various different ABC brushes placed bristles up in an ABC brushes mug.

How to Prevent Brush Damage in the Future 

  • Clean your brushes regularly - Ensuring you clean your brushes regularly will always be the first step to preventing damage to your paintbrushes. Always use the right cleaners when painting with either acrylic or enamel paint, and make sure you rinse your brushes regularly as you paint. This helps to make sure that no paint has a chance to dry within the bristles or ferrules of your brushes, and cause the hairs to bend or splay. Overcleaning can also cause damage to your paintbrushes, so remember not to scrub them too aggressively so that you don’t wear down or bend brush hair, especially when cleaning softer sable hair brushes. 

  • Using the right brush for the right job - Always make sure that you use the right brushes for their intended purposes. Using delicate sable hair or small, round brushes when dry brushing, instead of a dedicated, rounded dry brush, will destroy the bristles and shapes of these brushes a lot quicker than if you keep them for use with detailing aspects of your miniatures.  

  • Rotating brushes during long sessions - Painting for longer periods of time can cause some damage to your brushes, especially if you are consistently only using one side of the brush. Rotate your brushes as you use them, turning them with your fingers so that you distribute wear over all of the bristles, enabling you to maintain the brush's shape better.

  • Storing your brushes correctly - Never keep a brush in water over long periods of time, storing it bristle side down will cause the weight of the brush to bend the hair. Keeping it upright, before it has dried, will cause water or paint to gather in the ferrule, eventually evaporating and leaving paint behind. This can then harden and cause the bristles to splay, and since the ferrule is inaccessible, the brush will never be able to be restored. When wet, lay the brushes out on a flat surface, the water can then run out of the brush and prevent it from ever getting into the ferrule. 

It’ll always be worth knowing how to restore your paintbrushes, especially if you have made a considerable investment in any of ABC’s sable, synthetic or dry brush paintbrush ranges. (link to abc ranges here). Knowing how to fix different brush hair types and when it is possible to restore your brushes will be key to extending the lifetime of your paintbrushes and, therefore, an incredibly beneficial skill to add to your miniature painting practice.

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