Let's talk details.

[Angry__Panda]

Ok, so for the past week or so I have been reading the threads via the search function and seen a lot of great information. What I need now are details regarding the epoxy to use as well as how to set the knot, and specifically how to choose the loft. I have a bunch of different knots that I am ordering this week. I just wanted to be sure of my handle widths before I ordered. I can also tell you that the handles will be made from bamboo (not sure how much that matters in relation to buying epoxy). Some of the knots I am going to be ordering;

Whipped Dog silver tip
TGN;
-silver tip
-grade a silver tip
-best
-super silver tip
-honestly probably a few others from them
Blankitty blank knots

Once I get better at this I am going to also find a good boar knot, get a Shavemac custom knot and try and see if I can get a horse hair knot from Juan over at Gifts and Care.

Anyways thought I would try and give a few details in terms of figuring out setting the loft and what not (maybe some of you have had better luck setting some of these knots higher or lower or whatever?).

And don't worry, I'll be starting a thread of the process and the whole ordeal soon. I will say straight off the bat that Dayoldstubble is largely to thank for this happening, his bamboo brush is what made me want one to begin with and his PM's have been a great help in finding materials and figuring out what to do to make it happen. So thank you Dayoldstubble and thank you B&B for having such a kick butt community!

 

[Hex]

Have you got a link to the bamboo handles, I can't recall having seen one. I think they would look awesome if they retained the knots/seams/whatever that bamboo has.
Re the loft, for my 1st restore I set it at 50mm, and I have a variety of brushes set at from 47mm through 58mm and I like them all.
Before setting the knots, I used to use a rubber band around the knot at various lofts to see how it was going to feel. Too high and the brush gets floppy, too short and the brush is too stiff. Play around with it and see what feels good to you.

The epoxy that I used was Devcon 5 minute.

Good luck

 

[luvmysuper]

 

[Captain Pre-Capsize]

My two cents, who needs the pressure? Buy the longer lasting epoxy and relax as you work. You won't use it until the next morn anyway. The handles I have restored have turned out fine. Don't like the floppy so set the knot deeper and it has more backbone.

 

[luvmysuper]

Some folks do like regular long set epoxy, but really - if you can't put the base of a knot inside a hole within 5 minutes, you ought to start thinking of another hobby, like checkers or something.

 

[JCinPA]

Some folks do like regular long set epoxy, but really - if you can't put the base of a knot inside a hole within 5 minutes, you ought to start thinking of another hobby, like checkers or something.

Made me laugh! My first one scared me half to death, but it came out beautifully! I used a Loc-Tite 5-minute epoxy, and I agree.

Having done one brush, perhaps I should be quiet here, but being inexperienced never caused me to shut up before, so why start now??

Most bowl latherers seem to like about 50 mm loft. Many of the face latherers say 45 mm. I have a King1976 custom with a knot set at 50mm (I think) and it is oh so comfy, but it is just verging on too floppy. If I get my thumb and two fingers into it, no problem and I just love it. But I would have liked it perhaps a couple mm shorter. So I set my first 22mm Silvertip A into the Ever Ready at about 47 mm, kind of splitting the difference.

It is WONDERFUL! Soft, lathers creams and soaps wonderfully in my scuttle, but has the backbone I like when applying to my face. I could easily face lather with it. Having had a Tweezerman for years, then getting the EJ best, and finally the King1976 custom, I can say I loves me the silvertip. Soft is where it's at. But I like them 2-3 mm deeper for just a tad more backbone.

Hope that helps.

 

[ddk13]

I used marine grade silicone when I set mine. If I drop the brush and break it, or I want to set the knot lower/higher no problem. A member here suggested it in another thread and I wasn't sure if I should. I went ahead and did that and am glad I did. After I set my knots I thought I should have put one knot in another brush and vice versa. It took a little tugging, but eventually I got the knots out undamaged and made the necessary changes. With epoxy, once their set that's it. It wasn't necessarily fun drilling out those knots to begin with. Why make something semi-permanent when you don't have to?

 

[Angry__Panda]

Hmmm, the silicone, can I get it at Home Depot or somewhere similar?

As for the Epoxy, while I agree getting it in there in five minutes should be no problem, I might end up just using some longer set stuff just for my first couple of brushes. I do want to make sure that the loft is right and the angle is right and such.

This leads me to another good question...How do you make sure the knot is sitting at a 90 degree angle and is in the brush straight?

And then is there a formula for depth? Like are brushes more stiff if you set the knot at double the diameter? So if I have a 22mm knot and set it at 44mm is that like perfect or if I have a 22mm knot am I still gonna want to keep it in the 47-50mm range?

Thanks for the help thus far guys, I'll of course have pictures of this entire process soon. Got myself a day off tomorrow so I am gonna get started .

 

[ncbuckeye3]

Hmmm, the silicone, can I get it at Home Depot or somewhere similar?

As for the Epoxy, while I agree getting it in there in five minutes should be no problem, I might end up just using some longer set stuff just for my first couple of brushes. I do want to make sure that the loft is right and the angle is right and such.

I would say go with the 5-minute stuff also. You don't want to set a knot then take it back out while it is still wet, you are going to get epoxy all over everything and ruin it. It doesn't take a whole lot to set the knot, either, you put too much and it will ooze out the sides. Just remember, you can put too little, in which case you knot falls out and you can add more and glue it back in, no damage done. You can put too much, in which case it oozes out and you can't do anything about that except have a brush with epoxy all over it.

 

[Snargle]

This leads me to another good question...How do you make sure the knot is sitting at a 90 degree angle and is in the brush straight?

And then is there a formula for depth? Like are brushes more stiff if you set the knot at double the diameter? So if I have a 22mm knot and set it at 44mm is that like perfect or if I have a 22mm knot am I still gonna want to keep it in the 47-50mm range?

Assuming you're not using an oversized hole with an undersized knot (e.g., an 18mm knot in a 24mm hole) you won't have any problems with setting the knot straight. All the knots flare out a bit just above the plug and that's enough to keep everything tight and straight. If it leans a little bit one way or the other, you can adjust it by eyeball when you're gluing it in. Even with the 5-minute epoxy, you've got a few minutes to tweak it a bit.

As far as setting the depth, I recommend dry-fitting the knot into the handle before gluing. That way, you can see how it looks and feels and make any necessary depth adjustments before making a permanent commitment.

 

[shipr]

i used a double stick foam tape to test the loft on my failed brush handle experiment. i was able to set the knot and use the brush normally, then after 2-3 lathers the tape would fall off.
once happy and committed i would probably go with the devcon epoxy or something similar. even though it says 5 minuets, i always let it sit over night.

 

[beeranon]

How do you make sure the knot is sitting at a 90 degree angle and is in the brush straight?

A__P, I was thinking exactly the same thing when test fitting the Black Badger in my RV handle, mostly because the expansion of the knot above the glue at the base kinda worked against the edges of the hole, making the knot lift itself out of the hole unevenly. I ended up tearing off a 18"-24" strip of masking tape, folding enough at one end so the folded part was long enough to wrap of the base of my knot (so as not to get tape sticky on the badger hair), then give it a tight wrap up before setting it. This also had the beneficial effect of giving the knot more stiffness when putting it in place and making it easier to see if it was plumb to the base.

Hmm, just reread that, and am not sure how well it translates into text. Will post some pics this evening if you're interested.

 

[beeranon]

As for the Epoxy, while I agree getting it in there in five minutes should be no problem, I might end up just using some longer set stuff just for my first couple of brushes. I do want to make sure that the loft is right and the angle is right and such.

I could see using the longer set for handle-filling, just to have plenty of time to get to your marked level, but it just doesn't take much epoxy to set a knot: a little in the hole, a little on the base, place the knot, give it a wiggle to make sure it's seated, then eyeball it straight. In my case, I was glad to be using the 5-minute stuff, because I was worried the knot would tilt while I wasn't looking, so I kinda held it in place for a couple of minutes.

 

[Neep]

And then is there a formula for depth? Like are brushes more stiff if you set the knot at double the diameter? So if I have a 22mm knot and set it at 44mm is that like perfect or if I have a 22mm knot am I still gonna want to keep it in the 47-50mm range?

Rule #1 There is no formula.
The deeper you set the brush knot, the more backbone it will appear to have.

BUT:
Funny things start to happen when you set a knot deeper.

Let's take a standard 22mm knot, for example. The silvertip badger knot in my hand has a 22mm plug, and that plug is 7mm deep. Therefore the hair diameter immediately above the plug is 22mm. The total height of this one is 67mm, so that's a 60mm loft if it were to be fitted in the handle down to the top of the plug.

So far so good.

Now, if I set the plug just 1mm deeper into the handle, the hair diameter is now 23.5mm. That's because the hairs splay out (and they are hard here) just above the plug. So I would need a 22mm+ hole which is opened out a little at the top to 23.5mm.

Now.... if I want to set that knot down to 50mm loft, I reach the point where the hair diameter is 26mm at the top of the handle! OK, I can squeeze (force) the knot into a hole which is 24mm diameter at the top, but it starts to compress too much really. The top of the knot starts to distort and compress in shape, and in fact although the knot becomes stiffer (has more backbone), the overall diameter at its widest is now much less than it was. The diameter of the new un-bloomed knot in my hand is 52mm. Now it has gone down to 42mm because the hairs are compressed.

A little brush.

Moral: if you want a brush with a lot more backbone, then buy an extra stuffed silvertip and leave it set higher, or use a boar knot.

IMHO.

Rod

 

[Angry__Panda]

Thought about putting this in another thread, but figured what the heck, hopefully someone can help me out again .

So, I got my bamboo all polished up (100 through 600 grit sand paper, gonna "cure" it with some Tung Oil before I set the knot of course) and now I need to order the knot. My question isn't in terms of grade of hair (probably gonna go with a silver tip of some sort via TGN or Larry over at Whipped Dog for my first couple of brushes) but how do I decide on the diameter of knot. Let me explain, obviously those of you guys turning blanks into handles can make your hole as big as you'd like to fit the knot you buy. I am working with bamboo that is from .75" through 1.5" thick (outer diameter). So the first one I grabbed happens to be somewhat oval and from 25.5 to 27mm thick. When we are talking knots of course we end up with 1 to 2 millimeters being a large difference from what I have seen, so what do I buy? Should I get an attachment for my dremel or my drill to widen the hole to 28mm and just go with that or do I buy a 24mm and set it a little deeper? As for the attachment, not sure if they make them big enough or whatever, but talking about something like this that would be able to kind of grind out the top of the hole a little bit till it was circular and 28mm.

 

[FL shaver]

Saw the other thread - looks like a cool project!

As far as the knot goes, I think you are going to have to go bigger and circular. Round it out at 27mm, maybe 28mm and drop a 26mm Silvertip in there? You could play with the loft a bit as you enlarge the whole. That'll be a pretty big brush, eh?

 

[Angry__Panda]

That is just the first one, but yeah 26mm is the biggest one I have ATM. I also have a couple that are closer to 30mm that I am going to use to create something like the Chubby 3 . But when you get up to that size and quality of hair the knots start getting up their in cost (50+) so I wanted to start with some other stuff that was a little less expensive first just to get an idea of what I need to do .