Problems with Vallejo Kolinsky Sable brushes

[bullfrog]

A few years back I bought several boxes of Vallejo Kolinsky Sable brushes due to my LGS ceasing to sell them. I'd used them almost exclusively for ages and never had a single problem. Due to circumstances I had to stop painting for a few years but now the brushes are giving me trouble. (I had never used any brushes from these boxes in the past.)
Now as soon as the brush gets anywhere near water it splays apart. Fluffing up like a poodle is probably an exaggeration but it's what it feels like.

Is there anything I can do to improve the shape of the brush hairs or should I ditch this expensive purchase in the bin and not waste my time?

 

[BloodASmedium]

Frogger my dear it could be anything from just a bad make for longevity or something along the lines that brushes although need to be used to get them to die , maybe not using them has mad them brittle enough at the body to just plain split. Try this use some brush soap wash em good and don’t rinse them let them sit with their finest point overnight and then rinse the following day. See if we can give em a bit of a perm. Let me know how this goes. I use it when it happens to my unused citadel brushes from ten years ago. As new types and makescameouy I bought those and the original were left to sit. I used this idea from Marc soley and it worked wonderfully. Kinda rehydrated the bristles.

 

[nuggetz]

I'm sorta new to the whole miniature painting and I see everyone thins the heck out of their paints. Isn't that a sure fire way to have the bristles of your expensive brushes wick up the water/paint combo and embed itself deep within the ferrule? Isn't it sort of impossible to avoid this? Could that end of the bristles be coated with something to prevent it? Just thinking out loud. I suppose I'm comparing thick paint at the end of brush and really watered down paint sucking itself up into the ferrules.

 

[CyAniDe]

Isn't that a sure fire way to have the bristles of your expensive brushes wick up the water/paint combo and embed itself deep within the ferrule? Isn't it sort of impossible to avoid this?

From my experience it's inevitable. You can prolong your brush's life by cleaning it with brush soap ( =curd soap) after each painting session. Even if you think you already cleaned it well in your water tub and no stains on your cleaning paper are left behind, the soap still pulls out a lot of the upper part near the ferrule sometimes.
But even though I have the soap right in front of me on the desk I'm usually to lazy to give my brushes a good cleaning -.-

But the brushes I use (W&N Series 7) still hold pretty long. I replace em once or max twice a year. Compared to my other expenses, 25-50 € per year are quite bearable

 

[Ritual]

I'm sorta new to the whole miniature painting and I see everyone thins the heck out of their paints. Isn't that a sure fire way to have the bristles of your expensive brushes wick up the water/paint combo and embed itself deep within the ferrule? Isn't it sort of impossible to avoid this?

I never put that much paint on the brush that it ever becomes a problem. If I need to coat large surfaces with paint I use a bigger brush so that I still only put paint on the very tip of the brush. Even though it is diluted and the rest of the brush is moist, there is hardly any build-up of paint under the ferrule and my brushes last for years and years.

 

[Sicks]

I'm sorta new to the whole miniature painting and I see everyone thins the heck out of their paints. Isn't that a sure fire way to have the bristles of your expensive brushes wick up the water/paint combo and embed itself deep within the ferrule? Isn't it sort of impossible to avoid this? Could that end of the bristles be coated with something to prevent it? Just thinking out loud. I suppose I'm comparing thick paint at the end of brush and really watered down paint sucking itself up into the ferrules.

I only really have that issue when mixing glazes (which you can use a seperate cheap brush for) once it's on the pallet you don't need to dunk the whole brush in there,just maybe 2mm of the tip, let it soak a little paint up and you'll have enough to start working without it creating too far up the brush, bigger sizes brushes will help for larger scale stuff too and brush soap to clean at the end of a session. Really this just delays the inevitable because eventually all brushes will die with a little care and investment in a decent brand and you can get at least a years worth of painting out of the (based on painting roughly 2-4 hours daily)