Wooster Chinex FTP Extra Firm Flat Sash Paint Brushes

Ask a decorator what they like least about a good brush and the answer is usually cleaning it. Chinex is the filament that changes that calculation.

DuPont's modified nylon has a surface paint struggles to cling to, so the brush rinses out far quicker — and, more to the point, actually comes clean at the heel rather than slowly stiffening there over a few weeks. A brush that dies at the heel is a brush you replace.

Flat rather than angled

A square-ended brush does the covering work: door panels, flush doors, wide skirting, larger areas of trim. You give up the fine cutting-in control of an angled tip and gain a full-width edge that lays off evenly without leaving a heavier line down one side.

Most decorators carry both shapes — the angle for the line, the flat for the fill.

The extra firm part

Chinex FTP stays stiff in water, and that matters most with today's thick waterborne trim paints. Where a softer brush bogs down and stops moving material, this keeps pushing it, and keeps its shape while doing so.

Sizes

2, 2.5 and 3 inch. The 2.5 is the usual choice for doors and larger trim; the 3 inch for flush doors and long runs where you want to be off the surface quickly, before the edge starts to set.

Expensive for a brush. Also the cheapest per job of anything on this page, provided you wash it out properly — which, conveniently, is the one thing this filament makes easy.

Ireland & Northern Ireland — 1–3 working days. Charged by total order weight, VAT included:

• Up to 30 kg — €6.99, or free on orders over €85
• 30–60 kg — €13.99
• 60–100 kg — €27.99
• Over 100 kg — pallet delivery €49.99

Great Britain — 2–4 working days. €13.95 up to 30 kg, then €27.90, €55.90 and €99.90 by the same weight steps. There is no free delivery to Great Britain.

Rest of Europe — non-liquid items only, from €11.75, priced by destination and weight at checkout. Paint and other liquids ship to Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain only.

Dispatch and collection — order before 12pm Monday to Friday and it ships the same day. Click & collect at Ballymount, Dublin 12 is free and often ready within the hour.

Returns — 14 days to change your mind and 14 more to send it back. Tinted paint is non-returnable once mixed.