Brush Stand

Last week I had the opportunity to play in my father's workshop for a few hours and decided to put together a brush stand to replace the hated plastic one I've used for years. What I came up with is a prototype and as such I left the piece largely unfinished, resulting in a rather industrial looking finish.

Attachment 241950


The entire piece was made with steel I had in the shop from a previous project. The arcs are 3/16" square stock, bent on a ring bender and the base is a piece of 1/2" bar. A MIG welder was used to tack the arcs to the base and then the edges were ground off the inside edges of the square stock to prevent damage to brushes. All-in-all the materials I used resulted in a stand capable of holding your 25 lbs. brush but I'm pretty happy with the shape and functionality of my little project.

that does have a nice look. is there something to keep the brush from sliding down?

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Originally Posted by tintin

that does have a nice look. is there something to keep the brush from sliding down?

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I had originally planned on adding a cross-piece to prevent the brush from sliding down the back slope of the arcs but found that it wasn't really necessary. In practice the diameter of the arcs is large enough to provide a good footprint to hold the brush. At this point I have had absolutely no issue with the brush sliding off the stand so have no plans to add a stop.

Is the top inside of the arc beveled? Hard to tell from the picture.

If not some kind of coating would help wear on the handle and possible slippage.

On my cheap hanger and brush I use electric tape....:p

I love it, my only concern is metal coming in contact with my handle material. if it is finished smooth or coated, then it's a win for me.

Shrink wrap from HF works well.

This design is to classy for electric tape or shrink wrap I was thinking more of leather or maybe even mono filament fishing line....:shrug:

Wrap a strip of leather with baseball stitching! PITA, but would be cool

There are some fancy looking fishing lines on the market,,, really strong & thick,,, the kind of line that I need for the fish I catch. :rofl2:

Just spit-balling again... if there is a decent amount of side-to-side flex to the square stock (ex.: towards or away from each other), you could tack a small dot of material (as in, just the welding stick, no additional stock added) on the back-slope (inside). I think an appropriate placement would be the same height from the base as the ends of the square stock.

These "nubbins" would provide something noninvasive/unobtrusive to stop the brush from sliding off. It should also allow for a wider range of brush sizes. I think.

Anyway... Sleek. I like it.

Pffft. I didn't know coatings were an option! In that case, I have even more ideas :deal: !

There are a few products that you should be able to use to coat the top of the stand with little hassle. Two very similar products are Plastidip & Tool Magic (IIRC). Both easily found at craft stores, where they have the jewelry making tools. A product that is (sort of) new to the market is a "brush on" version of Flex Seal. I remember seeing part of a commercial before I hit fast forward on the DVR... so yea, they have a non-aerosol version now lol.

Food for thought. I'd consider price per ounce in addition to colors. But that's just me :shrug:.

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Originally Posted by 32t

Is the top inside of the arc beveled? Hard to tell from the picture.

If not some kind of coating would help wear on the handle and possible slippage.

On my cheap hanger and brush I use electric tape....:p

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The evolution of the arcs was quick and dirty. My original intent was to use some 3/16" round stock I had left from the same project as the square stock (a chandelier I made for my wife) but my ring bender is a cheap one and will not bend as tight of a ring with round stock as with square stock. Once I got the arcs welded onto the base I hung the brush and found two problems, the first being the aforementioned edges and the second being that the gap between the arcs was a bit wider than intended. The first I solved by taking a flap sander to the top, inside edge and grinding enough material off to result in a nice radius that shouldn't do any damage to a brush, additionally I muted the ends of the arcs a bit to prevent damage while sliding the brush onto the stand. The second issue was even easier to solve as I simply forced the arcs a little closer together. I finished it all off with a number of sprays with clear paint to prevent rusting (I hope.)

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Originally Posted by Crawler

Pffft. I didn't know coatings were an option! In that case, I have even more ideas :deal: !

There are a few products that you should be able to use to coat the top of the stand with little hassle. Two very similar products are Plastidip & Tool Magic (IIRC). Both easily found at craft stores, where they have the jewelry making tools. A product that is (sort of) new to the market is a "brush on" version of Flex Seal. I remember seeing part of a commercial before I hit fast forward on the DVR... so yea, they have a non-aerosol version now lol.

Food for thought. I'd consider price per ounce in addition to colors. But that's just me :shrug:.

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I've worked with Plastidip before and I actually used it to coat the bottom of the base. Due to the shape of the Plastidip can, tall and skinny to facilitate dipping the handles of tools, I was forced to paint several coats onto the foot. This issue, along with the price and the resulting finish, would probably keep me from considering dipping the entire piece in Plaistidip.

As it stands, this is pretty much a prototype. The brush I currently have hanging in it is a cheap Van der Hagen I picked up at Walmart as the only brush I had with me was my small travel brush. My thought was that I would use the brush for a while, see how everything works for a few months and then simply leave the brush at my mother's house for when I visit. Until then I want to make sure the stand doesn't damage the brush and see how the current approach of clear paint is going to stand up in the humidity of a bathroom.

One thought that I have had in regards to some type of arc coating to protect brushes to is to simply paint the "footprint" with a little rubber cement. It's cheap, readily available and would be easy to replace when needed. At this point I'm going to take the wait and see approach before I do anything.