brooke484•1mo agoProlific Poster

That time I used a cheap paintbrush instead of an expensive archaeology trowel

I was scraping dirt off a pottery shard at a dig in New Mexico and my fancy trowel snapped, so I grabbed a $2 stiff paintbrush from the hardware store and it worked way better for cleaning fragile edges without scratching anything. Has anyone else ditched their trowel for a brush on delicate finds?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_gavin1mo ago

I snapped three trowels in one season at a site in Colorado before I finally gave up and tried a stiff nylon brush from a dollar store. That thing lasted the whole summer and didn't leave a single scratch on the bone fragments. People really sleep on how much control a brush gives you on delicate material.

cooper.viola1mo ago

Well hell, @the_gavin, you were just swinging that trowel like a caveman fighting a turkey.

rubyreed1mo ago

Actually, nylon brushes can scratch some surfaces too, especially if they have stiff bristles with rough ends. You really want a natural bristle brush for the really fragile stuff, like horsehair or camel hair. Did you have any issues with static buildup using nylon on dry sediment?