Inexpensive Fine Paint brushes

[cteno4]

In my searches on ebay i stumbled across an interesting find for paint brushes. Nail painting/decorating brushes. you can find very inexpensive set of these fine brushes. these range around $2.50-4 for 7-15 brushes per set. search on nail art brush set

 

some examples:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/15-x-Nail-Art-Design-Gel-Polish-Brush-Painting-Pen-Set-/330527322516?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf4f6b194#ht_3339wt_1078

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/15-x-Nail-Art-Design-Gel-Polish-Brush-Painting-Pen-Set-/330527322516?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item4cf4f6b194#ht_3339wt_1078

 

ive been comparing these to both medium priced small brush sets you can buy at the art supply store and nice individual fine point brushes i have bought in the past. i find these brushes to beat the fine sets you can get in the art stores (usually around $5-10 for 3 brushes) and equal the nice individual brushes in the art stores (they usually dont carry great really fine brushes for parts painting, most are more for making brush strokes for painting so dont work as well on painting small parts in 3D). these are almost as good as my really nice fine hobby brushes i have which are usually like $6-12 each. given the cost i think most folks would find these nail brushes would suit their fine painting needs at a great price.

 

we shall see how long they last, but so far they have held up through a dozen or so washings well.

 

i love great brushes, but they usually cost a lot and w/o really great care will die fast, so im always careful about seeing if a job needs the ultra great brush or not! also even a good brush not cleaned well will give awful results down the line.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[David]

No shipping charge? Given a padded envelope from the US to Canada ranges about $1.80 I'm wondering how this is done.

 

Have you actually received any of these? If the seller is legit then this is an easy sale.

[cteno4]

David

 

yep got em in about 1-2 weeks shipping.

 

about a month back i was looking for something and started noticing all these 99 cents hong kong deals on ebay with free or $1 shipping so i thought i would do my usual craft store thing of cruising around and looking for things that were dirt cheap or had cheap or free shipping that ordering from in the us would kill you for little things like this. found a pile of them so spent about $25 and ordered a bunch over a week. so far the are all coming in like clock work and in pretty good shape. some have been busts, but these are spot on great brushes and best anything you can buy for less than $4-5 EACH here! at these prices you can have a pile and toss them when they get mucked up! a few of the larger brushes are useful for glue and painting scenery stuff. and i want to try the fan brush for doing some dry brushing as well!

 

i dont know how these guys do it frankly unless there is some super cheap chinese shipping method they are tapping into or they are promos, who knows, but this one's a keeper. i just purchased a few more different sets to try them out as well (sure they are all from a similar handful of manufacturers, just different bundling). if they work i think ill just invest $20 in the ones i like the most and have a supply for the next 10-20 years!

 

btw the little sets of 3 striping brushes are not as useful for modeling. they are long brushes you can use to try and lay down lines with, but pretty useless to paint parts with. i did try to trim one of these down into a normal brush, but it only came out so so.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/3pcs-Acrylic-Tip-Nail-Art-BRUSH-Ongle-LINER-Drawing-Pen-/170603274073?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item27b8bf5f59

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

An update, i got the fine line $1 brush set and these are the very long fine brushes to lay down longer lines. not as useful for model rr painting stuff. i trimmed one of them down to just a tiny fine point brush. worked ok, but not as nice as a formed fine tip brush, probably how the ferule is shaped with the hairs. so these really are not worth it

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290514920222&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT#ht_4170wt_860

 

i have some others on order and hope that a few of these may have the best set for doing small model rr stuff and a good bang for the buck as well. ill post more when i get them.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Ok some more tests.

 

$2.70 set of 7 brushes came in. very nice little set. 3 fine brushes all quite fine and nice. the ferules are nicely done with good brush shapes. two small flat brushes that are useful and one smaller fan brush for doing dry brushing and powders. it also has a dotting tool which is basically then end of the metal ferule just ending in a little metal ball. you can use it to make  a tiny circular dot with paint pretty well. also good for applying super glue as it can get a fairly good bead on the tip to apply, but not huge amount. plus you can just wipe it some acetone to clean off any dried glue.

 

these are nice as they have larger diameter handles to hold better for fine work than thin brushes (especially with my sized mits)

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=180631563496#ht_4565wt_1090

 

second set was a set of 3 fine brushes for $2.49 (on sale now for $1.49 for the next 2 hrs!!!). bout the same set of fine brushes as in the set above. longer tapered handles. nice brushes for less than $1 ea (only 50 cents each on the sale!).

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/3x-Tiny-Acrylic-Nail-Art-Drawing-Painting-Pen-Brush-Set-/180631562269?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2a0e7ae81d

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[cteno4]

ok another test was of these a set of 4 fine brushes (they say #0, 00, 000, 0000 but they look a bit finer than that) for $3.56.

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/4-pcs-Acrylic-Nail-Art-Painting-Pen-Drawing-Brush-Tool-/280580976552?pt=AU_Nail_Care&hash=item4153edefa8#ht_2384wt_979

 

these are really nicely tipped brushes, fine ferule that keeps the hairs in a very nice cone. these are the best yet i have found for these nail brushes. a tad more expensive but still at less than $1 each they match my nice hobby ones at $5-7 ea!

 

they have very slim handles which is a bit harder in my huge mits, i do like the fatter handles of some of the other sets.

 

cheers

 

jeff