The Trekells I buy (and have had very good results with) are all synthetic golden Taklons. I don't use bristle brushes too much since they are a bit of a pain to clean and leave more pronounced brush stroke marks.

Cleaning brushes
 

Hi Richard,

This is how I clean my brushes: I swish them around in paint thinner I get by the gallon from the hardware store. I do this out in the garage. (I use turpenoid when I'm indoors, I take two painting classes and both instructors insist we use odorless turp in class, so I just use this whenever I'm inside at home too.) Anyway, I swish the brushes and wipe them on a paper towel. I repeat until the brushes are clean. Then I bring them inside and use some dishwashing detergent and warm water mixed up in the palm of my hand to clean them further if necessary, which it usually is. Then about half the time I clean them with 'Old Masters' brush cleaner. Then I'm done.

I'm pretty gentle with the brushes during this process. I think my biggest problem is probably not cleaning them immediately after use.

thanks for your interest,

Joan

I'm using vegetable oil instead of thinner these days for my softer brushes. I immerse them in the oil, rubbing them gently against the special brush cleaning screen (I think it's a Bob Ross cheapie that fits into a coffee can, but it works great) to remove paint. I wipe off the excess oil on paper towels or rags, then continue cleaning the brushes with water and hand soap, as previously described. Bristle brushes may need the OMS to remove the paint better.

Misconceptions about solvents and their safety abound. Any solvent which is an aromatic hydrocarbon emits vapors into the air. Any concentration of these vapors is not healthy. This includes kerosene, MS, OMS, turpentine, and all of the "oids" and "tines". The rate of emission depends on the vapor pressure of the material, not whether one can smell it or not.
Kerosene has a considerably lower vapor pressure than OMS, in spite of its odor. Natural gas is odorless (until they add the sewer smell). So is carbon monoxide. Both will kill you quite dead if the concentration of the gas reaches a critical level.

One can understand concern for open containers of solvent in a classroom situation. If ventilation and air exchange in a studio is not adequate to compensate for a few open palette cups, it's no place to be teaching painting. One should never have open solvent containers in any studio, holding more than a spoonful or so in a palette cup. Brush cleaning should not be carried on en masse in a classroom situation, and vegetable oil is an excellent way to obviate the problem of having paint-laden brushes dry between a session and getting them home where you can do the job correctly.

Vegetable oil alone is not adequate to clean a brush thoroughly. Using oil on hog bristle brushes makes them flabby and unresponsive. It has little effect on the action of sables, cam-ox and fitch hair.

Dishwashing detergent may be good for cutting the grease in a dirty brush, but it's unnecessarily harsh and will eventually harm brush hairs. Since castile soaps are compounded with oils not dissimilar to what we're painting with, they clean brushes best. I can't overemphasize the benefit of using conditioner to re-shape a brush after washing.

I just received three "experimental" series 5026 DaVinci's, (extra long 24" handles) and now I'm not only not aware, but unconvinced . . . unless Ferraris have slipped to the quality level of a used Chevrolet while my back was turned. (!)

Once again, as I've found European-made brushes, the bristle seems to be good quality, two of the three brushes I ordered show the hairs were cupped from curving bristle, and are interlocking. Then they trim off the flags, squaring up the end of the brush, ruining the hairs !!! (dammit!)

Although the handles are "raw", they are nicely shaped, and the ferrules and crimp are above reproach. Why don't the Euros seem to understand the value of flagged hairs ??

I may attempt to rectify this problem, experimenting on the near-unusable brushes from other sources . . . more anon.

*Faint*
Good god! So Da Vinci's aren't exactly what they're hyped up to be then!

Marcus, I feel rather circumspect about "trashing" a brand on the basis of examining only three brushes, and those from a specialty series at that. I don't know where the long-handled series fits in the DaVinci system, I can only appraise what I'm looking at.

My gripe is the lack of flags resulting from trimming off the bristles. Examination shows the hairs are very likely fully flagged when cupped in the round, but perhaps they don't conform to an ideally regular shape when the ferrules are flattened, so the brushmaker trims the hair at that point?

This would be either to satisfy customers more concerned with cosmetic symmetry than what constitutes a really good brush or because they are not truly skillfully well made to retain good form when the ferrules are flattened ??

I'm expressing a personal preference. I know quite a few painters who seem unperturbed by brushes I don't like. In every other regard, they seem very nice . . . although they are not better than the best of Trekell's, nor Silver's Grand Prix (which do have nicely flagged hairs) or the W&N Rathbones I just unpacked. (made in Japan)

Re-enforcing what I've said about European-made brushes, they seem quite at par with the "top tier" brushes I've tried, presented as hand-made (there's no other way) in England, France, and Spain - all of them well-enough made, but clipped to shape. (The DaVincis' handles are stamped "Germany".)