Introduction: Fix Up an Old Hair Brush With Plasti Dip

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About: The name's Alex. I'm currently majoring in Graphic Design at Cal Poly Pomona. When I'm not busy with schoolwork I like to practice hockey, watch some movies, modify my Nerf blasters, play with my Yamaha DTXpre…


I've been meaning to try out Plasti Dip for a few years now, I've just never had the perfect opportunity to go out and buy some for a specific use.

I was cleaning out my bathroom when I ran into my old hair brush. I gave it a swipe through my hair and... *OUCH MY SCALP!*. Turns out all the little rubber/plastic tips on the end of the bristles had fallen off. 

Seeing as how this brush has some sentimental value, I felt I would try to fix it up with some Plasti Dip, and put it back into use.

Step 1: Get Supplies


You're going to need some supplies in order to fix up the brush:

-Plasti Dip (6-7 Dollars at Home Depot)

-Hair Brush (Clean)

-Toothpicks (Testing Purposes)

-Work Area (I chose a paper plate)

-Spoon or other Dispensing Device (Keep in mind you wont be using this again, unless you want it coated in rubber)

Step 2: Clean the Brush


You want your brush as clean as possible before you go dipping it. At first I started cleaning it by hand, but that soon got annoying and tedious.

I ended up using the garden hose. It worked great, and the hair can fly off since all the little rubber tabs are gone.

Step 3: Prepare the Dip


Make sure to read all of the instructions on the container before you set about using it. The most important thing is using it in a well ventilated area. Make sure you either do this outside, or open up all the windows and doors. This stuff smells.

There was a pretty good amount of dip on the lid, so I scraped that off, and plopped on another spoonful of the black goop.

Make a nice pile of it on your work surface. Then use the bottom of the spoon, or dispensing device, to smooth it out to a decent depth. Somewhere in between a 1/16th of an inch and 1/8th of an inch should do the trick.

Step 4: A Test


Now before you go and stick the brush in all that goop you're going to want to give it a test run to make sure it's the right depth, and just to get a feel of how this stuff coats onto an object.

The directions say something along the lines of "Use a rate of 5 seconds for every inch of material you are dipping, and use the same rate upon removal of the object from the dip".

That means we should only have our brush bristles (and toothpick) in the Plasti Dip for about a second total.

Step 5: Dip the Brush


At this point, you need to make sure the puddle of Plasti Dip is big enough to fit the entire brush, so you can easily do this in one go. Once you're ready, give the brush a gentle roll in the dip. Slowly moving from one side of the brush to the other.

Remember that we only want each bristle to be in the goop for about 1 second, so keep that in mind when you roll the brush. Try to keep it a constant motion.

Take a look to make sure each bristle got a tip of Plasti Dip. If not, give it another roll in the goop. For me, this wound up giving parts of it quite an uneven coat, but at least all of them are covered with some rubber now.

On a side note: Now is a good time to coat something completely random with the excess Plasti Dip left on the plate. I ended up grabbing some extra drum sticks that I never use, and coated the tips in the rubber.

Step 6: Drying and Possible Re-coat


After the bristles had been drying for 30 minutes I decided to give it a second coat of Plasti Dip. Some of the smaller tips had shrunk quite a bit, and I felt a second coat would do them some good.

If you decide to re-coat just follow the directions from the previous step again.

Plasti Dip has a drying time of 4 hours, so keep that in mind. I just let my brush sit overnight in the garage and it was all ready to be put to use the next day!

Step 7: Testing and Long Term Results


(11-20-2010) It's been in use now for 2 weeks, and it seems to be holding up fine. It feels like any other brush that I own. The only "degradation" that I've noticed is that the tips, which were quite glossy when it was first done drying have turned into a more flat black. They don't seem to be getting smaller, though.

On a side note: Plasti Dip on drumsticks doesn't really do anything. I haven't really used 'em much (since I use 5B's and those are 5A's), but they didn't reduce noise, or increase bounce, or anything really.

Thanks for reading! I'm always open to any questions, comments, and criticism.