Brushes with nanoscale bristles, such as nanotube arrays held together by van der Waals
forces, have applications as compliant electrical switches, probes and micro-scale cleaning
tools. Repeated use exposes the brushes to contact and impact at high strains resulting in
the bristles undergoing exfoliation, deformation and damage. We show that the damages
incurred can be nearly recovered by capillary evaporation of solvents from the free standing aligned nanotube brushes.