Every project needs a good finish. Or that’s what they say. And we all know the joys and frustrations of choosing the right type of finish. And I’m sure some of us know how irritating the wrong finish can be. I certainly do.

Today, however, I don’t want to dwell on the different types of finish or the different ways to apply finishes. I want to extend my support and defence of the much maligned and often slandered One Dollar Brush.

If you take the time to ask anyone or search out any article regarding using a paint brush, you will get some very good tips. For example, I can put on my expert jacket and tell you that you should always clean your brush thoroughly after each use. You should hang it to dry so it does not get misshapen. You should actually clean it with a solvent before you first use it, to help make the bristles supple. You should never use it unless it’s already completely dry. And it should be the highest quality you can afford.

I’m taking off my expert jacket, because I don’t want to get paint on it.

Now I’ll tell you the truth.

Expensive brushes are normally full bristle. They don’t have any solid plug in the middle to make up the bulk of the brush. Cheap brushes, however, have a plastic or wood plug in the middle and it is ringed around with bristles. What does that mean? That means a cheap brush does not hold as much paint. Also, paint will run out of the centre of the brush like coffee pouring out of an overturned mug. Cheap brushes make painting irritating.

Expensive brushes normally have a durable method of keeping the bristles from falling out. Cheap brushes, however, lose their bristles like a shedding dog. I’m sure everyone who have ever used one of these brushes is completely aware of that fact.

So, in what way am I defending them? Simple: cheap brushes are cheap.

A dollar brush costs so little you don’t feel bad that you don’t have a bottle of paint thinner to clean the urethane from it. Of course, that’s not much concern here, any more, since they’ve made oil-based paints as illegal as heroin or hand grenades. But I do still have some contraband in the workshop. I use it sparingly.

A dollar brush also costs so little, you don’t mind the fact that the paint dried on it while you were off to answer the phone, which turned into making coffee, which turned into watching tv, which turned into going to sleep.

And the main thrust of my argument is that painting is already extremely irritating, so it really can’t get any worse just because you need to dip the brush a bit more often or you sometimes need to pluck stray bristles off your workpiece. The latter, I claim, actually makes painting just a bit more interesting, because it forces you to pay attention.

There is, however, yet another reason. The One Dollar Brush is truly horrible. However, truly good brushes are not the Five Dollar Brush or the Ten Dollar Brush. Examine those and you will invariably find they are simply cleaned up versions of the One Dollar Brush. The actual good brushes are normally twenty times as expensive as the One Dollar Brush. That difference in price is, for me, the deciding factor.

That and the fact that I try to use brushes as little as possible.

Truthfuly, though, I do have a few brushes of good quality. They did cost considerably more than one dollar each. I have had them for up to 15 years, actually. The oldest is truly showing its wear, mostly in the form of errant bristles. But these more expensive brushes require attention that you cannot always give. There are also applications which would outright ruin them. So, there is no substitute for the extra-cheap brush (unless you’re willing to use a piece of cardboard or an old dishcloth).

I just wish the same could be said about cheap paint.