SHAVEMAC Brush Advice

[OAK3x]

Want to order a Shavemac Custom Brush and seek advice on a good configuration for my needs. My soap of choice has been Mitchell's Wool Fat (hard puck). Currently I soak the puck in warm / hot water and use my Parker Silver Tip Badger (22/54). The brush is soft and it takes a bit of work to generate lather.

For the Shavemac I am looking at a Bulb in 24/48. For the hair I am struggling between the Silvertip Two Band and Silver Tip D01. Obviously I want a decent backbone. Not sure of the D01 will be too firm. Any thoughts?

 

[Rudy Vey]

Want to order a Shavemac Custom Brush and seek advice on a good configuration for my needs. My soap of choice has been Mitchell's Wool Fat (hard puck). Currently I soak the puck in warm / hot water and use my Parker Silver Tip Badger (22/54). The brush is soft and it takes a bit of work to generate lather.

For the Shavemac I am looking at a Bulb in 24/48. For the hair I am struggling between the Silvertip Two Band and Silver Tip D01. Obviously I want a decent backbone. Not sure of the D01 will be too firm. Any thoughts?

see my answer in your other thread

 

[BigJ]

My best advice is to get Rudy Vey to make you a custom Shavemac. Alternatively, get one directly from Shavemac.

That said, my personal preference is their 2-band or Silvertip 3-band.

The D01 has more scritch than I prefer, although many do like them.

 

[Space_Cadet]

Listen to Rudy. He knows best.

 

[OAK3x]

Rudy has beautiful handles and I agree this is the route I am going to take.

Regarding the hair type, I am now have to decide between the bulb and fan by Shavemac

 

[Icebear]

I'm face lathering and a fan of fans.
I have a Shavemac D01 Silvertip and it just too much hair, I think flow through could be better.
My favorite knot is the "regular"2-band, i.e. the non-"D" variant.
And btw. Rudy made a few brushes for me with this knot.

 

[charliemilano]

1.16.2020.

My @Rudy Vey brushes. Definitely top tier! And an excellent customer experience working with him!!

 

[OAK3x]

Would a Shavemac Bulb 24/48 have a similar feel to a 25/50? (2 Band Silvertip)?

 

[charliemilano]

Would a Shavemac Bulb 24/48 have a similar feel to a 25/50? (2 Band Silvertip)?

Similar, yes. Let's not overthink this. Specifically, I've ordered Shavemacs @ 24/52 that arrive as 26/50. I love Shavemacs (!). Not sure that there's that much precision in the manufacture of shave brushes (others more knowledgeable than I, please pipe in!). In my experience, a 2:1 ratio of loft to knot width is a good go by. I generally love shorter lofted knots. Some makers seem to prefer making 26/28/30 diameter knots. I happen to like 24/48 or 24/50. In my mind I'm not disappointed with a 25/26 x 50. YMMV. Hope this helps in your quest. As others have said, you can't go wrong with a Shavemac; recently I have bought 3 brushes by @Rudy Vey. He makes an awesome brush, especially with a Shavemac 2 band silvertip knot. Good luck, and let us know how this works for you.

Here are the ones Rudy has made for me recently... BTW, I've always told Rudy what knot/loft ratio I envision, but ultimately I defer to his judgement and experience. I have not been disappointed with this approach.

 

[OAK3x]

Similar, yes. Let's not overthink this. Specifically, I've ordered Shavemacs @ 24/52 that arrive as 26/50. I love Shavemacs (!). Not sure that there's that much precision in the manufacture of shave brushes (others more knowledgeable than I, please pipe in!). In my experience, a 2:1 ratio of loft to knot width is a good go by. I generally love shorter lofted knots. Some makers seem to prefer making 26/28/30 diameter knots. I happen to like 24/48 or 24/50. In my mind I'm not disappointed with a 25/26 x 50. YMMV. Hope this helps in your quest. As others have said, you can't go wrong with a Shavemac; recently I have bought 3 brushes by @Rudy Vey. He makes an awesome brush, especially with a Shavemac 2 band silvertip knot. Good luck, and let us know how this works for you.

Here are the ones Rudy has made for me recently... BTW, I've always told Rudy what knot/loft ratio I envision, but ultimately I defer to his judgement and experience. I have not been disappointed with this approach.

View attachment 1053946

Thanks...for your three brushed is the first (left) a fan, and the next two bulbs?

 

[charliemilano]

Thanks...for your three brushed is the first (left) a fan, and the next two bulbs?

All Shavemac 2 band silvertip bulbs.

 

[gregcss]

I like fans. Here's mine with a different angle. Bulbs are more rounded at the edges compared to fans

 

[Jens]

I sought advice on a similar question a while back, you may want to have a look at that string:

new 2-band

Hello, I would appreciate some advice: I am thinking of getting a new "high end" badger brush. This requires a bit of research, because high end badgers are expensive, and I am somewhat "picky" with my brushes. Also, my main experience to date, through a career of 3 years as a dedicated wet...

www.badgerandblade.com

I ended up getting a Shavemac, 25/52 mm knot, 2 band silvertip D01, fan shaped knot. Many people on the string I link above, thought it would be too firm. I don't think so at all. If I was to make another order along these lines, I would go with a 25/50 bulb not, same hair.

If you prefered soap is MWF and you like backbone, I would suggest you instead consider a boar with shorter loft, for example the Proraso boar (made by Omega). I specifically tried to have by Shavemac 2 band made to resemble the Proraso Boar (again, see string linked above), which I think is a fantastic brush, especially for soaps like MWF.
Now that I am able to compare, I have to say that although I like my new Shavemac, the Proraso Boar is clearly the superior brush when it comes to loading MWF.

 

[147_Grain]

I have two Shavemac brushes, one a 3-band silvertip 23/54 bulb which I have had for fourish years and the other a 2-band silvertip 23/50 fan which I ordered on Black Friday and received on January 6th of this year (after a mishap where they swapped my order with another customer's).

Of the two, I greatly prefer the 3-band so far. The 2-band is so dense that it doesn't want to splay at all when face-lathering. Perhaps I should have gone with a higher loft than the configurator's default.

Either brush will lather up MWF and other hard soaps so long as I squeeze the soaked brush out a bit before loading. For that matter, so will my ancient Whipped Dog silvertip, which is the floppiest brush in my den. I have to go to substantially worse-formulated soaps than MWF to have trouble with frothing so long as I don't try anything resembling the Marco method.

Incidentally, I seem to be in the minority in that I am not super-impressed so far with Shavemac's 2-band silvertip hair. It seems almost identical to the 2-band hair in my Maggard SHD knot. They both look like black badger hair that has been aggressively treated(bleached?) to make the tips hook and turn white. Other than the SHD splaying much more readily (because mine's not set nearly as deep in its handle), they feel the same. They also both have excellent flow-through despite the very high density.

In terms of a brush with plenty of backbone that gives me a good scrub without scritch, my Semogues and my pair of Simpsons with "super"-grade hair seem to do it better.