Fifteen years of painting trim before someone showed me I was brush-dipping wrong

My buddy Dave watched me paint a baseboard last Saturday. He laughed. Said I was loading the brush too deep. Dripping paint everywhere. I always thought that was just how it went. He showed me to dip just the tip, like a third of the bristles. No drips. Clean lines. Felt like an idiot. 15 years of messy trim work. Anyone else have a basic skill they learned super late?

2 comments

2 Comments

the_kai17h ago

Hang on, I actually gotta push back on this one a little. I've been painting houses for almost twenty years now. I dip the brush like half to two-thirds of the way in, knock off the excess on the inside of the can, and my lines come out clean with zero drips. The trick isn't how deep you dip, it's how well you knock off the extra paint. If you're getting drips, it's because you're not tapping the brush right or you're trying to paint too much at once. That "just the tip" method means you're stopping to reload every two seconds, which kills your momentum and leaves lap marks. I'd rather have a wet brush that I manage properly than a dry brush that forces me to stop constantly.

miab1615h ago

Honestly agree so hard with @the_kai on this one. I painted my entire kitchen last year and tried that "just the tip" method everyone keeps talking about and ended up with these awful lap marks that made me have to start over. Ngl, the real secret is just learning how to knock off the excess paint properly and not loading up the brush like a crazy person. Tbh people overcomplicate painting by acting like there's some magic technique when really it's all about brush control and not being lazy with the tapping motion. I've been doing it your way for years and never looked back.