I seem to have been bitten by the brush making/restoring bug. Since doing my very first restore of my old C40 with a Whipped Dog Black Badger I have restored an Ever-Ready 650PB (solid resin handle) with a TGN finest fan and created my own handle to fit a small 16mm TGN finest knot into. All three of these brushes are great. The first one is a pure badger and is rather loose (used an 18mm knot and set it way too high), but strangely, it works fantastically well, just not an everyday brush because of the scritch. The 650PB with TGN finest fan is in my regular rotation and is a very well loved brush. It is simply wonderful. It ended up with dimensions of 22mm/48mm and is a bit of a lather hog (way dense), but overall an amazing shaving brush. The home made handle with a 16mm TGN finest is an awesome brush. I set this one by gut feel and it ended up with 19mm/44mm. With the TGN finest the backbone is very good and flows amazingly well. A joy to use with really pleasant face feel.
So, now I have been thinking about the Ever-Ready 100T I picked up at an antique mall a few weeks ago.
It is a classic handle and the original boar knot was as terrible as the one in my old C40. So, off it went.
I also took a 220 sand paper to the handle to remove the old patina and smooth over some of the uneven places at the seam. I am also planning to round off the very sharp corner on top where the taper towards the knot is. I think a soft round curve instead of sharp corner will be much nicer. I will do the same for the bottom of the handle. It's so sharp there that it almost cuts into the hand when you hold it. Finally, the hollow plastic handle is way too light, so I have J-B Welded an old brake caliper bolt from one of my Volvos into the bottom after I removed the knot plug. The feel of the handle is becoming more like a Simpson than a low end Ever-Ready (the E-R 650PB handle had none of these "cheap" feeling attributes and had a pure badger knot originally). Now, the question is what knot I should put in this handle? I was thinking another TGN finest as it will look simply amazing in this handle: from bottom up it will be black, white, black, white. This is very tempting to do and I love TGN finest knots (maybe try a fan shape this time). however, after thinking some more I began to lean towards an Omega boar knot TGN sells. First, I have enough badger brushes and only two boars (Omega 10275, which I love and Semoge 1470 that I can not seem to make friends with). I love boar brushes and so far Omega boar knots agree with me very well. So, I am considering an Omega boar knot in this handle. It will preserve the original idea of this being a boar brush, but I will drastically improve the handle by easing the corners, adding weight to it and I will bring the finish of the plastic to a nice smooth grade, but not that plastic shine it had originally.
What say you, the community?
So, now I have been thinking about the Ever-Ready 100T I picked up at an antique mall a few weeks ago.
It is a classic handle and the original boar knot was as terrible as the one in my old C40. So, off it went.
I also took a 220 sand paper to the handle to remove the old patina and smooth over some of the uneven places at the seam. I am also planning to round off the very sharp corner on top where the taper towards the knot is. I think a soft round curve instead of sharp corner will be much nicer. I will do the same for the bottom of the handle. It's so sharp there that it almost cuts into the hand when you hold it. Finally, the hollow plastic handle is way too light, so I have J-B Welded an old brake caliper bolt from one of my Volvos into the bottom after I removed the knot plug. The feel of the handle is becoming more like a Simpson than a low end Ever-Ready (the E-R 650PB handle had none of these "cheap" feeling attributes and had a pure badger knot originally). Now, the question is what knot I should put in this handle? I was thinking another TGN finest as it will look simply amazing in this handle: from bottom up it will be black, white, black, white. This is very tempting to do and I love TGN finest knots (maybe try a fan shape this time). however, after thinking some more I began to lean towards an Omega boar knot TGN sells. First, I have enough badger brushes and only two boars (Omega 10275, which I love and Semoge 1470 that I can not seem to make friends with). I love boar brushes and so far Omega boar knots agree with me very well. So, I am considering an Omega boar knot in this handle. It will preserve the original idea of this being a boar brush, but I will drastically improve the handle by easing the corners, adding weight to it and I will bring the finish of the plastic to a nice smooth grade, but not that plastic shine it had originally.
What say you, the community?
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