Brushes are one of the most invaluable tools for industrial, commercial, technical, and creative professionals. From build-to-suit flexibility to cost savings, here are a few reasons why we could all use more brushes in our lives.

1. They’re Customizable. Brushes can be created in an unlimited number of shapes, sizes, quantities, and variations. There are a seemingly infinite number of combinations that can be used to design an ideal brush for your use. There are tiny brushes and massive brushes; brushes with short bristles and brushes with very long bristles; brushes with colored filaments and natural or white brushes; flexible brushes and stiff brushes; brushes for wet applications and dry applications; brushes for hot applications and cold applications; and the list goes on. If you can imagine a use for a brush, we can probably create it for you.

When you go to a home improvement box store or hardware store, all you’re going to find are whatever brushes are in the kitchen, janitorial, or painting sections. On the other hand, when your brushes are custom made, there is practically no limit to what’s possible.

2. They’re Flexible. However soft and fine or rough and rugged you need your brush to be for a given application, Precision Brush designs with flexibility in mind. Some of the finest, softest brushes are used for things like developing film, where it’s necessary to eliminate any surface scratching. In such cases, the brush needs to be softer than human hair. There are filaments available to suit these applications that are half or even a quarter of the thickness of human hair; diameter is one major factor in brush softness or stiffness.

The raw material you select for your filament affects flexibility, as well. There are brushes made out of animal hair that have a better bend recovery if bristle flexibility is important and the filament is doing a lot of bending. If you think about the age-old wish of those with curly hair to have straight hair and those with straight hair to have curly hair, you know that — regardless of what treatment people apply to their hair — it always seems to go back to its natural shape. The same is true of animal-hair brushes. If you need your brush to bend and then easily return to its original shape, animal hair may be the way to go.

We can also make filaments that are very stiff, such as for brushes used in street cleaning or those used in aggressive product scrubbing or debris removal applications. In these cases, it is often the usability of the brush tips that is most critical. In softer applications, use of the sides of the brush is more important, such as for wiping or finishing.

Length contributes to flexibility as well. The longer the filament, the more flexible it is; the shorter, the stiffer. Precision Brush can work with you to select just the right flexibility for your application.

3. They’re Recyclable. Did you know that many brushes are recyclable? The metal is recyclable, the polypropylene is recyclable, and many times we are able to use recycled filaments and metal to create new brush products. Customers can also return cores or shafts to us when it’s time to replace old filaments.

Precision Brush has a “good neighbor of the Earth” policy wherever we can in our production and processing. In addition to brush recycling, we use recycled cardboard, and we recycle all of the cardboard we use.

4. They’re Long Lasting. We have seen our brushes be in operation for customers for years and years — even decades in some cases. Brushes designed for more aggressive uses naturally need replacing faster than gentle-use brushes, but Precision Brush will work with you to design a brush that perfectly suits your application and minimizes wear and tear.

Where use of the bristle tips is important, you want to ensure proper pressure is employed so that only the tips are being used. When the brush is spinning, the degree of pressure can be affected by brush speed, so that is another element to be aware of. A lot of times, people will want a brush to work more aggressively so they push down harder on the brush or apply more pressure. This damages the sides of the filament, which wears the brush out faster. A better solution is to select a different filament that will create the desired outcome without undue pressure. Proper filament selection, pressures, and speeds will contribute to the longevity of your brush.

5. They’re Low Cost. Many of our industrial customers have multi-million-dollar machines that are all set up and ready to go for production, but they need a customized brush to make everything run smoothly. The brush is likely the most inexpensive part of the machine, but it may just be the most important, especially when it’s the part that touches the product, puts a finish on the product, or without it some part of the machine doesn’t work at all. Brushes are a fairly low-cost part of the process, but they are crucial in terms of achieving the results you need.

Some brushes are more expensive than others — depending on factors such as size and quantity, for example — but the raw materials are simply not extravagantly priced, so brushes are often the most cost-effective solution in addition to being the most practical and functional.

Depending on the application, brushes can even earn you hundreds or even thousands of times the cost of the brush itself. If you think of an artist’s brush, for example, the cost of the brush becomes negligible against the price of the sold artwork. If you’re making windows and you can make a thousand of them bright, clean, and perfectly finished thanks to a brush, that’s a thousand more that you’ll sell compared to an unfinished or poorly finished product. The cost per clean is practically non-existent. The more you use your brush, the closer its cost per use moves to zero.

Another way brushes save you money is in cost savings when they are used to keep outside air or weather from reaching the interior of a building or room where the temperature needs to be maintained at a certain level. The payback is literally thousands of times the cost of the brush itself.

Would you like to brainstorm with a brush professional? We’re available to help you determine which brush will work best for your needs.

Have an idea in mind? Try our online interface to design your custom brush.

Ordered from Precision Brush before? You can reorder brushes here.

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