O.K. I know ,it sounds like a title for a telethon.Here's the question.What size brushes do you guys use for painting the REALLY small stuff like tools and applying pin washes on your 1/72 builds?Jeff

I'm not a "braille-scale" modeler, but I have painted a few details in my day...

The smallest brush that I use is the Artetje Camlon 100/0. You can get them from AM-Works here:

AM-Works::Artetje Brush

However, I don't actually use these for much aside from small linear features (scratches, some chipping, the "rain drops" on Splinter cammo, etc).

For most of my detail acrylic work, I use a 10/0 sable liner brush.

For detail work with oils, I use a 2/0 or 3/0 red sable, Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes.

One thing to keep in mind, especially with acrylic paints, is that the smaller the brush, the less paint that it holds and the faster that paint will start to dry in the tip.

So, while the 100/0 brush might sound like a veritable "wizard's Wand" for detail painting, it's actually quite hard to use. It requires constant cleaning and will only put down a very small amount of paint (since it only holds a pin-head sized drop).

This is why I really like the 10/0 liner brush for detailed acrylic work. The long bristles hold a useful amount of paint and the brush has a very fine tip, so it will lay down a tight line and keep painting for a reasonable amount of time before cleaning.

This last point is very important. For most detail painting, the problems aren't usually associated with not having a brush that small enough, but are usually caused by not keeping that brush clean as you paint. A brush must be clean in order for capillary action to carry the paint from the body of the bristles to the tip and to flow off from there to the surface.

Semi-dried paint in the tip (especially acrylic paint) prevents this smooth flow, and that's usually the problem with trying to paint fine details.

So, while having the right brush is important, the right brush is often not just the smallest one, but is the one with the finest tip that's also has a usable size bristle body.

Oil paints are not as "finicky" when it comes to this tip-drying problem, and for those paints, tip size is usually most critical for details. The body of the bristles is used to smooth or brush out the paint that's been applied, so then the overall size of the brush needs to be matched to the size of the surface area being painted.

But with acrylics, it's all about paint load and flow. So, brushes for acrylic painting need to be selected with those qalities in mind, and not just overall size or tip size.

HTH,

Mike,Thanks for the help.That gives me an idea of where I need to be.I have found that I have to stop and clean my brushes when using acrylics also.Jeff