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A little closer look at Shaving Brush Fibers/Hair (SEM Comparison)

Some of you may have seen some of my posts on the Razor Blade forum where I use my access to a Scanning Electron Microscope to take a look at different razor blades at high magnification. I was given the idea to look at shaving brush fibers/hairs in one of the synthetic brush threads and I thought it might be a neat exercise.

This is not a methodical look at what's available in the industry, this is morning of I just wanted to see what I could see type thing. There is no method to my madness, no measurements, no real conclusions to be drawn from what I'm about the present. I just wanted to show off some pretty pictures.

One thing of note, in general, non-conductive materials such as hair and fiber are hard to image using a SEM because of the nature of the technology. There is a phenomenon called "Charging" which affect the surface detail when looking at non-conductive materials. "Charged" areas will tend to look very white, like over-exposure on a digital camera and it seems that badger hair charges rather easily. This affected the quality and detail od some of the below images, but I thing you can still see enough to get a general idea of what you are looking at. So without further adieu...

Boar Hair Stalk:



Boar Hair Stalk Split:




Boar Split-End:



2-Band Finest Badger Hair Stalk:



2-Band Tip:



3-Band Badger Shavemac D01 Hair Stalk:



3-Band Badger Shavemac D01 Hair Tip:




High Mountain White 3-Band Badger TGN Hair Stalk:



High Mountain White 3-Band Badger TGN Hair Tip:



Muhle STF V2 Fibre Stalk:



Muhle STF V2 Fibre Tip:




I think the boar hair is the most interesting of the bunch. It's very scaly and the hairs split multiple times in multiple places.

All the Badgers look basically the same. The biggest difference is the thickness of the hair. The Shavemac had the thickest hair stalks, but very fine tips. The HMW hairs were thin/slender the whole length, from tip to end. The 2-band from TGN looks very smooth and a rather blunt tip. In reality, all 3 hairs are very soft at the tips, but the backbone (in this case) seems related to the thickness of the hair stalk. The Shavemac was thickest and that brush has the best backbone. The HMW was thinnest and have the worst (not bad, just worse in comparison).

The synthetic fiber looks very smooth and perfectly round and its tip was very, very thin. If I were to guess, it appears that the material is stretched to the point of breaking to form each fiber tip. I'm not sure of the actual processing method though, just a guess and based on a history of looking at synthetics in industry.

Anyway, this is enough words...enjoy!
 
How cool is this... Thank you very much! Indeed the boar looks very interesting, and the Muhle fiiber as well, no wonder they feel so soft.
 
I was only kidding when we discussed using the microscope on shaving brush hair in the blade forum, but some microscopic bristle porn sure is fun.:thumbup:

However, your're missing samples of horse hair and the infamous new Simpsons synthetic.:wink2:
 
I was only kidding when we discussed using the microscope on shaving brush hair in the blade forum, but some microscopic bristle porn sure is fun.:thumbup:

However, your're missing samples of horse hair and the infamous new Simpsons synthetic.:wink2:

Well, I don't own either but am always, always taking donations...you know...for science! :lol::thumbup:
 
Thank you. It looks most interesting. Does the synthetic feel sharp of scritchy because of the barbed tip?
 
Thank you. It looks most interesting. Does the synthetic feel sharp of scritchy because of the barbed tip?

The synthetic tip is not so much "barbed" as it is "hooked," which helps make the tips of the STF 2.0 (and almost all quality synthetics) very, very soft.
 
The synthetic tip is not so much "barbed" as it is "hooked," which helps make the tips of the STF 2.0 (and almost all quality synthetics) very, very soft.

Exactly. Similar hooking is visible in this TGN two-band finest hair, photo at about 30x. When dry the brush can feel stiff and look clumpy, but when wet it has a "gel-like" feeling.

 
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