A cost effective way to purchase BruKon brush containers from this site is in groups of six trade 6-packs (ie. 36 BruKon brush containers in total), which we call a “tower”. This minimises the unit cost of postage and handling as well as the containers themselves. If this number of containers is more than your immediate needs you may like to collect together orders of friends and colleagues to make up a tower. For orders significantly larger than six trade 6-packs please contact us directly to discuss optimal shipping arrangements.
The range of BruKon products held by our stockists can vary. In general all stores carry the Trade 6-packs, but other products may not be kept in stock. We recommend that you contact your nearest store to confirm that they have stock of the BruKon products you are seeking before visiting.
In hot dry weather your brushes can dry out quickly, In particular, dry paint tends to form on the upper outer part of the bristles. In these situations you can keep painting with brushes in good condition if you rotate your brushes in one or more BruKon brush containers. When your brush starts to dry, simply put it in a BruKon brush container with some fluid and give it a shake. Having taken out the brush that was previously in the container for your immediate painting needs. If the drying time is very quick in relation to the rejuvenating time in the containers, you can simply keep two brushes and containers in reserve and always choose to use the one that’s been resting for the longest period.
To improve the flow of paint off good quality natural bristle brushes, such as pure bore bristle brushes, you can condition them by soaking the new brushes in linseed oil before use (alternatively, if the fibes are natural, you can use hair contioner). The BruKon brush container ideal for this. Simply place some linseed oil in a BruKon brush container, enough to well cover the bristles, fit the brush to the cap then fit the cap to the lid, making sure the bristles are kept off the bottom of the container. Soak overnight for the bristles to become supple, making the brush ideal for high gloss enamel finishes.
The BruKon brush container can be used to store and clean artists brushes. One simply needs to make additional holes in the elastomer cap as needed. The cap has makings for two additional openings, which can be made by either slitting along the marked lines or by preferably using a drill if the brushes are small (1 and 2 in the image below). For many small brushes one can drill up to 10 holes in the lid to store 10 artists brushes (as indicated in the image below) as well as comfortably place up to three small brushes in the central opening.
Using a CollarWasher on the brush handle when fitting the handle to the container cap makes a better seal between the brush handle and the cap. This prevents fluid from leaking past the handle when the lid is fitted and the container shaken back and forth. It also reduces the rate at which fluid evaporates from the container when storing brushes for longer periods. To further reduce the rate of evaporation in these cases one can also fit a second CollarWasher to the brush handle so that it sits on top of the container lid; so that there is a CollarWasher above and below the container lid. Make sure that both CollarWashers are firmly against the container lid.
The BruKon brush container is designed to withstand harsh paint cleaning chemicals such as mineral turps, ethanol / white spirits and citreous based cleaners.
The BruKon brush container is unique amongst paint brush cleaning and storage products and best of breed amongst paint brush cleaning and storage container products. It is modestly priced and straightforward to use when compared to the more expensive, complicated and energy consuming paint brush cleaning products which have more recently come onto the market (emerging market and governmental concerns about environmental friendliness and sustainability have prompted a number of new products to enter the market recently). In addition, the BruKon brush container does not require hard to find and expensive paint solvents as needed with some cleaning and storage products. By simply using the BruKon brush container and thereby naturally modifying cleaning and storage habits a clear and easy win win situation is created for painters and the environment.
When storing brushes overnight, or for short periods, DIY painters sometimes use the technique of wrapping the brushes in cling film or put them in a plastic shopping bag that has been knotted closed. While this can slow the paint drying process on and between the paint brush bristles it does not prevent paint drying and impacting the life of your brushes. Nor do these techniques provide any sort of the cleaning. By keeping the bristles wet in a liquid the BruKon brush container prevents paint from drying, and by simply moving the container back and forward with the brush inserted paint particles are liberated out of the bristles to keep your brushes in a healthier condition. Most importantly, these plastic film based storage techniques are harder on the environment than the BruKon brush container as they involve consuming and disposing of paint covered plastic with each storage session.
This is one of those “how long is a piece of string” questions. Different combinations of brushes and cleaning fluids will cause the brushes to have different failure modes, and in turn storage lives. For example, a cheap steel collared brush suspended in water will not keep as long as a good quality stainless steel collared brush suspended in mineral turps. Similarly, different atmospheric conditions affect the rate of cleaning fluid evaporation. Overall the factors that determine how long you can keep a brush in a BruKon brush container are the quality of your brushes, the collar material, the type of cleaning fluid, as well as atmospheric temperature, humidity and the tightness of the seal around the brush handle. In practice, the BruKon brush container has been developed to satisfy the brush storage needs of most professional and consumer applications.
This is also a “how long is a piece of string” question. The clear plastic base of the container is UV and chemical stabilized and the rubber cap is similarly resistant to sun and chemical damage. As to the life of containers in years, we can meaningfully say is that customers have reported that they are still using their BruKon brush container 12 years after purchasing. The main factors that affect container life are the amount of use and maintenance rather than materials limitations; if they are looked after, they will last a long time. The BruKon brush container has been developed to satisfy the brush storage and cleaning needs of most professional and consumer customers.
The synthetic rubber cap has been designed to resist damage by mineral turps and citrus based paint cleaners. In the presence of mineral turps normal rubber swells to almost twice its size and becomes spongy. Then when the turps is removed and the rubber allowed to dry out, it loses its elasticity and becomes crumbly. In effect it loses its integrity. In contrast the BruKon brush container’s specially developed synthetic rubber cap is impervious to mineral turps.
You can effectively use the same BruKon brush container for paints that have a similar colour range (assuming the paints in question are either all oil based or all acrylic). For example, brushes used to paint different shades of red can be effectively cleaned in the same container if you are going to be painting a shade of red with that brush again. Putting brushes used to paint contrasting colours into the same container is not recommended. For example, we don’t recommend using the same container for brushes that are being used for black paints and white paints.
If a brush handle is adequately lubricated before a CollarWasher is fitted then the inner ring should not tear. You can also soften a CollarWasher in hot water before fitting if there is concern about tearing. For further details on fitting see the CollarWashers product description page.
CollarWashers are designed to stay on the brush handle once fitted. For a number of reasons they can become mechanically damaged during the long term course of painting and require replacement.
The BruKon brush container is designed so that individual containers can stand upright by themselves. In this configuration they can however be knocked over if sufficient force is applied. For more stability one can snap together 2 or more containers which will be very stable in comparison and quite difficult to knock over.
The brief answer is no. We don’t have a facility to directly debt Amex cards on this website. Regarding indirect use, while Amex can used in conjunction with Paypal accounts in some countries, particularly in the United States of America., unfortunately as a result of Paypal’s localization here in Australia it doesn’t accept Amex cards.
Stores the brush in its own container ready for use day to day, or long term.
