Brushes

The term brush refers to devices with bristles, wire or other filaments, used for cleaning, grooming hair, make up making painting, deburring and other kinds of surface finishing, and for many other purposes. A common way of setting the bristle in the brush is the staple or anchor set brush, in which the filament is forced with a staple by the middle into a hole with a special driver and held there by the pressure against the walls of the hole and the portions of the staple nailed to the bottom of the hole. The staple can be replaced with a kind of anchor, which is a piece of rectangular profile wire that, instead of nailing itself to the bottom of hole, is anchored to the wall of the hole, like in most toothbrushes. Another way to attach the bristles to the surface can be found in the fused brush, in which instead of being inserted into a hole, a plastic fiber is welded to another plastic surface, giving the additional advantage of optionally using different diameters of tufts in the same brush, and a considerably thinner surface (sometimes the bristles can be set this way to the outer surface of a plastic bottle).

Brushes used for cleaning come in various sizes, such as very small brushes for cleaning a fine instrument, toothbrushes, the household version that usually comes with a dustpan, or the broomstick. Hallbrooms are even larger and are used for cleaning large areas. Cleaning brushes also include brushes for cleaning vegetables, cleaning the toilet, washing glass, finishing tiles, and sanding doors. Paintbrushes are used for applying ink or paint. These brushes are usually made by clamping the bristles to a handle with a ferrule. The first people to use a paintbrush were the Japanese. They used them to paint landscapes but they also used them to write.

Paint and solvent residue should be cleaned from brushes after use. After removing most of the paint from the bristles manually with an appropriate solvent, detergent and water should be used to clean the brush further. After a thorough cleaning, natural hair brushes benefit from using a brush conditioner on the hairs to restore oils. A conditioner can be worked into the bristles which can then be shaped to a point and left to dry. Before the next painting session, the conditioner should be removed with water.

Once the wood block is set in place for molding, a series of saws cut the block to the required thickness. A machine called the shaper follows this action. The brush handle is placed in the machine, revolving and slicing away the outside edge. This only cuts away half of the block. To keep in good profile the same actions are done to the opposite side. Each model uses a different shaper machine. The machines must stay sharp for the blocks to remain smooth and accurate. Carbine is used in these machines rather than steel because it is more durable and stronger.