Hi all,
I won this on E-bay:
I cleaned it up with a silver polishing cloth I have and it looked great (I left some tarnish and patina on purpose). The problem was that the original knot in the brush looked and smelled awful. Musty and mildewy. I didn't have any power tools and was going to send it off for restoration but I thought maybe if I got some towels and wrapped them around the hair and gave a sharp tug... Well, it worked. I got most of the glue and the knot out in one sharp tug. I got out as much of the old glue as possible and then put a few dimes in to build a little 'shelf' inside the base of the handle. There was already an existing shelf but I didn't think it was going to be good for my brush as it was too deep. Hence the three dimes.
I ordered myself an 18mm Best Badger knot from Tony at The Golden Nib (it was a little too small, my fault for forgetting the +/- and it was closer to 17.5mm than the 18mm diameter opening I had). No worries, I let it sit in a bit deeper but now I'm wondering if I should have ordered some of that black badger...that'd be a nice contrast but oh well. I did use some heavy duty super glue (Gorilla Glue type stuff) so hopefully that will work as my JB Weld was welded shut (typical luck). Sadly, I miscalculated and some of the base hairs above the plug soaked up glue but only about 3-4mm worth of hair is affected.
The brush is a little scritchy (as I desired) and able to lather with soap or cream in the bowl of my mug. I like the 2 part assembly so that the mug holds hot water and a cup section slots in over the open mug and is warmed by the hot water it sits in. I already enjoyed a shave with my new Queen Charlotte Soaps Key Lime sample and my Gillette Old Type with a Wilkinson Sword blade and my new shaving brush.
The brush lathers up like a champ and with an almond sized dollop of the Key Lime, I had at least enough to do my usual 3 pass with 2 or 3 touch up passes for the problem spots.
Thanks to everyone for the tips I read here and to Tony for the knot!
I won this on E-bay:
I cleaned it up with a silver polishing cloth I have and it looked great (I left some tarnish and patina on purpose). The problem was that the original knot in the brush looked and smelled awful. Musty and mildewy. I didn't have any power tools and was going to send it off for restoration but I thought maybe if I got some towels and wrapped them around the hair and gave a sharp tug... Well, it worked. I got most of the glue and the knot out in one sharp tug. I got out as much of the old glue as possible and then put a few dimes in to build a little 'shelf' inside the base of the handle. There was already an existing shelf but I didn't think it was going to be good for my brush as it was too deep. Hence the three dimes.
I ordered myself an 18mm Best Badger knot from Tony at The Golden Nib (it was a little too small, my fault for forgetting the +/- and it was closer to 17.5mm than the 18mm diameter opening I had). No worries, I let it sit in a bit deeper but now I'm wondering if I should have ordered some of that black badger...that'd be a nice contrast but oh well. I did use some heavy duty super glue (Gorilla Glue type stuff) so hopefully that will work as my JB Weld was welded shut (typical luck). Sadly, I miscalculated and some of the base hairs above the plug soaked up glue but only about 3-4mm worth of hair is affected.
The brush is a little scritchy (as I desired) and able to lather with soap or cream in the bowl of my mug. I like the 2 part assembly so that the mug holds hot water and a cup section slots in over the open mug and is warmed by the hot water it sits in. I already enjoyed a shave with my new Queen Charlotte Soaps Key Lime sample and my Gillette Old Type with a Wilkinson Sword blade and my new shaving brush.
The brush lathers up like a champ and with an almond sized dollop of the Key Lime, I had at least enough to do my usual 3 pass with 2 or 3 touch up passes for the problem spots.Thanks to everyone for the tips I read here and to Tony for the knot!
It's awesome what you can find on ebay! Wish we had even more examples of such fine works of art more prominent then it is today.
I'm already eyeing other things to buy, haha. You guys are terrible for my self-control. First you got me back into shaving cream (Shulton Old Spice Lime, QCS, Trader Joe's, and so on to add to my TOBS and T&H) and now brush restoration!
