Favorite Knot Size?

[Ravenonrock]

A few of my favourites are 19-20mm in both badger and boar. Nicely balanced with appropriate loft and density. Good size for loading up hard soaps to hold a two pass shave and face lather. I have a big synthetic I save for when I use a shave stick. In general though I lean towards a more modest sized knot.

 

[FloridaCreekIndian]

22-24mm with 26mm usually the max size I will consider depending on the knot maker.

 

[lg4mat]

26mm for me, bowl latherer. Moderate backbone synthetic works best for me.

 

[BradSears]

Good point, it's true and a lot of posts recognize that. Many folks you'll notice specified boar/badger/plastic, fan/bulb, face or bowl, etc... RV, another fine brush maker, got just as curious as Brad and measured his rotation for the man. What a great crowd of folks.

+1 There are, as mentioned/suggested/implied above, many variables that come into play. I posed the question on the basis of only one quite deliberately, and am delighted with the range and thoughtfulness of the answers. To quote Old_School, "What a great crowd of folks."

 

[Kyle89]

Between my Omega Pro 49 and my tiny Omega 10077, I love them both. I have a few badgers and synthetics of various sizes in between my pair of Omegas and I haven't come across a knot size I didn't like, and I feel like I own a good array of different knot sizes.

 

[It's Hedley]

+1 There are, as mentioned/suggested/implied above, many variables that come into play. I posed the question on the basis of only one quite deliberately, and am delighted with the range and thoughtfulness of the answers. To quote Old_School, "What a great crowd of folks."

Brad, I think many of us were hoping when you asked this question that you might be open to the idea of offering smaller knots in the 22-24mm size range. I have owned a couple of your brushes and absolutely think they are among the very best made, but they are just too big for my personal taste. I would love to have one your brush handles with a 22/44-24/48mm Estate badger knot. Without question, it would be among my favorite brushes.

 

[HiPowerRon]

19 - 22 right now

 

[2bit_collie]

Reading the results with fascination. Brushes are an area where I have gotten by with a small quantity of choices. Looking at this I am definitively skewed low from a Simpson’s Wee Scot (14mm)to an Semogue SOC boar (24mm) and my daily drivers being a pair of 22mm knots (Semogue 1250 and Muhle Rein Dachs). Happily I am making a batch of brush handles this week as I spend some quality time with a mini-lathe. I had been focused on 20-22mm knots with perhaps 1 24mm, but now thinking that I might drill one out for an even larger knot!

 

[Cal]

I like tinies (<18mm) but my favorites are in the small (18mm to 22mm) range.

Due to being a face latherer and having a (kinda slim) face and neck with plenty of nooks and crannies, medium sized (23mm to 27mm) and large (>27mm) brushes are just way too big for me.

I can understand why folk with large flat faces (and of course the head shavers) would prefer larger brushes,

but for those of us who dislike having lather in our ears and up our nostrils, small (accurate painting) brushes are the way to go IMO. It's unfortunate that our choices are so limited these days (due to the BIG boom).

Being a "pics or it didn't happen" type... here's my current top favorite:

Shavemac 20/47 Silvertip 2-Band

 

[Merle]

I'll toss up the Simpson Emperor group of badger brushes for my best of class core diameter and resulting bristle bloom. (And, yes, of course, the quality of the specific hair stock makes a difference. I have a bulb 28mm Paladin which surprised the heck out of me how effective/how enjoyable it is. This, after dismissing many other fan flares at that size.

It's a distinct pleasure for me to see your check-in.

 

[Tanuki]

A few of my favourites are 19-20mm in both badger and boar. Nicely balanced with appropriate loft and density. Good size for loading up hard soaps to hold a two pass shave and face lather. I have a big synthetic I save for when I use a shave stick. In general though I lean towards a more modest sized knot.

I like tinies (<18mm) but my favorites are in the small (18mm to 22mm) range.

Small is beautiful! At least for scrubby face lathering. And not wasting lovely, but over-priced, soaps.

For me, for the best shave: boar, 18-20, lofted in the 45 neighborhood

Over 24 is just crazy. I have lots of brushes, boar, badger, horse, mixed, diameters up to maybe 26. That is just for variety and experimentation. For the best shave, see above.

 

[FarmerTan]

I could not agree more. I assumed the reason was that the majority of the profit was in the knot and not in the handle. The bigger the knot, the bigger the profit. A top post Owen

He does that a lot!

 

[FarmerTan]

I have a Parker silvertip that's around 22mm, but the bloom is so big that it seems very, very big, and it feels big on the face too.

But on average, I'd say anything from 22-24mm is great. I have a tiny 18mm Shavemac knot in a vintage Avon handle that is also great and it's fun to use. Always makes good lather.

What? You have a vintage Avon handle? Cool.

 

[sm29]

22 to 24 mm hits the sweet spot for me.

 

[karacha]

What? You have a vintage Avon handle? Cool.

Yeah, it's from the Gentleman's Regiment set:

 

[CallMeNugget]

Came here to post this. Anything bigger or smaller doesn't work well enough in my opinion.

22-24 mm (more or less) is my sweet spot!!

 

[Yuritau]

I've been using a Wee Scot exclusively for several years now. Anything over 20mm feels excessively huge.
I would be interested to try a Silvertip brush somewhere in 14-18mm though.

 

[pbrmhl]

Until recently, all my brushes were 24mm-28mm. Then I acquired an inexpensive Yaqi 22mm badger, and I’m really enjoying it. I scuttle lather and paint, and find the tinier brush to be a monster in both departments.

So today I ordered a 19mm Morris & Forndran brush from you, Brad, as part of my brush discovery mission. I’m looking forward to it!