Jen Manufacturing 3" Wide Poly-Brush Box of 36 Brushes

Good price for a large amount

Like plenty of others, I have never been a fan of foam brushes. I guess partly it is due to my preference for non-water based finishes. This makes me sound old school, I suppose, and I truly appreciate the healthier aspect of many water based finishes, I just know that the nasty fumed stuff usually gave better results. Was a bit of a hassle to safely use, but the results were usually outstanding. Since water based finishes are clearly the future for professionals and most hobbyist users, those cranky types like myself have no choice but to switch to water based. So where am I taking this? Well, foam brushes are usually used for water based finishes (I would assume most organic solvents dissolve the foam or its adhesive). I have begrudgingly started using some of these finishes, especially when they must be applied indoors (I prefer to spray HVLP outside whenever possible). Obviously spraying has its limits, so for most finishes I have usually used a nice quality (>=$20) paint brush that I clean with a comb/spinner and reuse -- these are the kind of brushes you hide from your spouse and children. I tried the big box store foam brushes several years ago and swore after I was led to purchase them based upon the glowing recommendation of the store associate. Utter junk was my final conclusion. It left bubbles behind and did not flow as nicely as a brush or rag. This also ties into my water based finish dislike, as it was also one my first times to try a water based poly. Ended up stripping the finish off and starting from scratch. I swore at both the brush and the finish, vowing to never go near either of them. Skip ahead to now and my feeble mind thought why not give the foam a go (I switched to HVLP for water based finishes well before this). I figured for the cost of less than a good brush of comparable size, the JEN brand were worth a shot. I could use them and toss them if I did not like it. Well, I have to say the JEN brushes do seem to be the trick (probably finishes, too, switching to General Finishes products which I wish Amazon would carry more of, hint, hint). While I am not ready to completely switch to the dark side of water-based finishes nor foam brushes only, I now realize they do have their place. The JEN brushes are US made and do feel substantial in feel for foam, especially when compared to the big box store selection (even their "good" brushes do not feel as good as paint store brushes). I have even found these useful for latex paint. And you can clean them and reuse them, if so inclined, although you definitely will not get as many uses as a good quality brush. Recommended!

I'll start out by saying that I'm unhappy. You see, to handle a really pesky roof leak, I ordered a couple gallons of "Through the Roof!" liqufied silicone sealant (terrific product, by the way). It's said to be brush-spreadable, and I didn't feel very happy about having to clean my good paintbrushes with buckets of xylol, toluol, or acetone after using them to apply that sealant. I'm also too cheap to go out and buy several good brushes just for this project, then throw them away. Wasteful, you know.So... foam brushes seemed like a shoo-in. Chip brushes didn't seem right, but foam brushes seemed well suited. But... we all know how aggregiously foam brushes break up & dissolve, right? Especially right in the middle of something critical and difficult to fix, leaving one with a half-finished {whatever} with chips of foam (or worse yet, a half-dissolved foam "brush" head) floating in the finish. Argh, right? So... since that sealant was thinned with acetone, and since foam brushes surely dissolve like lightning in acetone, I figured I'd be Mister Wise and buy... 48 2" brushes and 36 3" brushes. Let one work for twenty seconds, watch it dissolve, grab another, keep going.I even took a bucket and a plastic grocery bag up on the roof with me to catch all the nasty dissolved half-brushes.Except... I finished the entire job with only ONE 3" brush, and it looked no worse for wear after I'd finished than it did when I began. The handle didn't loosen or break off/out, the foam didn't break up or dissolve, nothing. I could very easily have popped that one brush into a corn can with half a cup of xylol and cleaned it right back out, maybe give it a final rinse in acetone, and you'd not have been able to tell that it had ever been used.Now what the heck do I do with the remaining seven dozen minus one brushes? As a rule, I don't like foam brushes - I consider them to be "not good brushes", disposable junk, and now I own 83 brand-new very GOOD (for foam) foam brushes. I'm too frugal to throw them away, especially since they're so invulnerable. I... just... don't have any clue what to do with them except hide them in the barn for the heirs to deal with.Oh, they came exceptionally nicely packaged, I might add. Many layers of brushes in the box, with paper dividers between the layers. The packaging was much nicer than foam brushes warrant, in my mind. Foam brushes belong in a big plastic bag or even a paper sack, just jammed in haphazard-like. These were treated at the factory as if someone gave a darn about them... and I suspect that someone DID give a darn about them.

I don't write reviews very often, but this product deserves one. I am a hobbyist woodworker who makes and builds tables for some side money. I used to buy the cheap foam brushes from harbor freight as I always considered foam brushes just to be throw away brushes. However I read another review on here on the re-usability and figured I would give them a try. I tell you what these are by far the best brushes to I have used and the others are right on their ability to be washed out and used again I have used them to apply about 5 or 6 coats of Mini Wax Pro Spar-urethane(another great product) and they work just as good on the 6th coat as they did on the first coat. While they are not made for applying Gel stain they also do a fantastic job at that also however you can only use them once for that purposes. The cheap harbor freight ones I used before to apply the gel stain would tear up in the middle of projects and leave pieces of foam behind or break of entirely from the stem of the brush and leave some nasty streak marks. In conclusion these brushes have far exceeded my expectations and then some. Also in the long run the value of these brushes exceed the cheap ones once you realize you can use them several times compared to a cheap throw away one. With a pack of 36 I could easily do about 12 (or more) tables including benches, while with the cheap ones I would usually have to buy a new pack(about 5$) every other table so that would account for a savings of about 12$ or more not mention the far superior quality of work.

I have had bad luck with the foam brushes purchased at big box stores. The handles generally snap off too easily and/or the foam falls apart. These brushes work well for me every time and when you buy a box of them their price is reasonable. Highly recommended.