Making Foam Paintbrushes

Supplies:
Foam insulation strip
Handle, like an old foam brush handle, an emery board, or wood piece

It’s not like a bag full of foam paintbrushes is a really expensive thing. But if you’re painting, and the stick pokes through your last foam brush, what can be done? Will you have to close up the paint, wash up, change your clothes, and drive to the nearest place that sells brushes? If you do that, you’ll have to shop, drive back home, change again, open and stir the paint, and start all over again. What a production! If you learn how to make your own foam brush you will never be faced with that drama.

You might or might not have a piece of foam insulation or weather strip at your house. If you don’t, go ahead and order some, and you’ll have it handy if you ever need a foam paintbrush. At a home improvement store, the insulation is available in assorted lengths and widths. It’s made with a peel-away backing; pull it off to expose an adhesive strip that helps to stick the insulation to nearly anything. You’ll need less than a foot of it to make a paintbrush; the width should be at least an inch wide.

Something like a short, narrow, thin piece of wood, works great as a handle for a new foam brush. But if you don’t have a piece of wood, use an emery board, an old foam brush handle, or even a tongue depressor.

Measure from one side of the handle – in the middle – to the other side – in the middle. If you have an old paintbrush handle, measure from one side, where there is a plastic ridge, to the opposite side, at the ridge. Cut the weather strip piece to be that length. Peel the paper strip off of half of the insulation piece and stick the foam to one side of the handle. Peel the remainder of the paper off, and wrap the insulation over the top, and down the other side of the handle.

Since an old foam brush handle is the best handle, go ahead and start saving them now, and throw away the foam as it gets ruined. Then, when your last brush is gone, you can make another, and another, and another. The handle, itself, is nearly indestructible.

Stop by a home improvement store and buy foam insulation or shop for it online. You’ll have it at your house, waiting on you, the next time that you need a paintbrush. The new foam brush can be made in just a couple of minutes so you won’t even have to cover your paint.