There are many reasons to start a brush restoration. The rising prices of premium manufacturers, the desire to customise a brush to your own needs, or to improve an old brush that has a special, personal significance, just to name a few examples.
Some time ago I bought a reasonably priced shaving box and its contents on Ebay, which I have now fully restored.
The brushes are shown in original condition with the right handle already with hair loss. The wood appears to be untreated and just a little dirty. The upper part of the handle is made from low quality aluminium and probably made before the war (Depression Era), so I had long wondered whether I should restore it. I find this occurrence frequently encountered from the United States, the combining of two different materials in this form very interesting, and it is rather unusual for German construction, which is quite a rareity.
In order to assess the handle material better, I removed the old brush knots for testing purposes by cutting off just above the handle with a sharp craft knife, and I carefully drilled with a 4mm and later 10mm steel drill, a hole in the centre of the brush.
These are the handles after drilling out the knots and a gentle polishing with steel wool. As a basic grinding was not necessary here, I could have alternatively used emery cloth 400 depending on the hardness of the wood.
I left the embossed inscriptions "Molla" and right "King" intact. Both handles were treated equally to ensure they looked their natural colour. The left handle is probably maple wood, the other one likely to be beechwood.
In comparison to today's quality standards, the joins between the aluminium top and wood base are poorly executed, relatively speaking, and are easily seen with the naked eye.
For the re-assembly of both handles I ordered two 24mm knots- "Finest Badger Knot Fan XH" and as an alternative, two inexpensive "Black Badger" knots from TGN.
As far as I know there is no international standardization of the terms Finest, Best Badger, etc. For me, the reasons for choosing the TGN Finest knot were the fact that 2-band brushes visually please me very well, that the brush has the necessary backbone and is not scratchy(although you can clearly feel the hair), and finally that the hair of the TGN Finest is not very dense and releases lather on to the face very easily.
The "Finest" hair requires a relatively long soaking time and then feels really "gel-like" and very smooth on the face, whereas it is quite scratchy when dry. In addition, behaviour can totally vary depending on the loft.
I used to be under the impression that the Blonde Badger designs had been specially treated, bleached and cut. In the present case, the hairs are in fact very bright, which indicates a bleaching and the peaks are IMHO clearly cut.
Other indicators are the missing badger smell and the fact that
the Black Badger variety seems to be a little scratchy, but after the softness experienced by Shavemacs and Thaters, the extra scritch of the Black Badger makes a nice change.
Ultimately, the choice of the hair type is always a very subjective matter and of course you can argue that a boar brush should be restored as a boar brush, but at this point my attention to detail reaches its limits.
I used Danish oil for the coating of the handles. This is a Tung oil mixture, which produces a matt finish. I heated it up a little to reduce the viscosity, applied it to the wood drop by drop with the fingertip, and gently rubbed. Afterwards, this required no excess oil to be wiped off with a cloth. The paintbrush supplied wasn't needed . The handles were hung up to dry once they had been fully oiled.
The two wooden handles were carefully introduced with two turns long spax screws so to be able to turn the brush on its axis during the oil treatment. This also served as a means to suspended them later so that they would have no contact with the ground over the 24 hours drying period before the second oil coat could be applied.
The second oil treatment was applied 24 hours after the first one was completely dry and the handle could be touched. A third coat was not necessary, probably due to the age and the hardness of the wood.
whilst the other gets comparatively the Finest Badger Knot Fan XH ................
Contrary to expectations, I like the two blonde Finest Badger knot on both wooden handles a bit better, probably because the original knots had a similar shape.
Some time ago I bought a reasonably priced shaving box and its contents on Ebay, which I have now fully restored.
Here is the box in original condition.
This is the first pic taken in November 2012, before the restoration.
The brushes are shown in original condition with the right handle already with hair loss. The wood appears to be untreated and just a little dirty. The upper part of the handle is made from low quality aluminium and probably made before the war (Depression Era), so I had long wondered whether I should restore it. I find this occurrence frequently encountered from the United States, the combining of two different materials in this form very interesting, and it is rather unusual for German construction, which is quite a rareity.
In order to assess the handle material better, I removed the old brush knots for testing purposes by cutting off just above the handle with a sharp craft knife, and I carefully drilled with a 4mm and later 10mm steel drill, a hole in the centre of the brush.
These are the handles after drilling out the knots and a gentle polishing with steel wool. As a basic grinding was not necessary here, I could have alternatively used emery cloth 400 depending on the hardness of the wood.
I left the embossed inscriptions "Molla" and right "King" intact. Both handles were treated equally to ensure they looked their natural colour. The left handle is probably maple wood, the other one likely to be beechwood.
In comparison to today's quality standards, the joins between the aluminium top and wood base are poorly executed, relatively speaking, and are easily seen with the naked eye.
For the re-assembly of both handles I ordered two 24mm knots- "Finest Badger Knot Fan XH" and as an alternative, two inexpensive "Black Badger" knots from TGN.
As far as I know there is no international standardization of the terms Finest, Best Badger, etc. For me, the reasons for choosing the TGN Finest knot were the fact that 2-band brushes visually please me very well, that the brush has the necessary backbone and is not scratchy(although you can clearly feel the hair), and finally that the hair of the TGN Finest is not very dense and releases lather on to the face very easily.
The "Finest" hair requires a relatively long soaking time and then feels really "gel-like" and very smooth on the face, whereas it is quite scratchy when dry. In addition, behaviour can totally vary depending on the loft.
I used to be under the impression that the Blonde Badger designs had been specially treated, bleached and cut. In the present case, the hairs are in fact very bright, which indicates a bleaching and the peaks are IMHO clearly cut.
Other indicators are the missing badger smell and the fact that
the Black Badger variety seems to be a little scratchy, but after the softness experienced by Shavemacs and Thaters, the extra scritch of the Black Badger makes a nice change.
Ultimately, the choice of the hair type is always a very subjective matter and of course you can argue that a boar brush should be restored as a boar brush, but at this point my attention to detail reaches its limits.
I used Danish oil for the coating of the handles. This is a Tung oil mixture, which produces a matt finish. I heated it up a little to reduce the viscosity, applied it to the wood drop by drop with the fingertip, and gently rubbed. Afterwards, this required no excess oil to be wiped off with a cloth. The paintbrush supplied wasn't needed . The handles were hung up to dry once they had been fully oiled.
The two wooden handles were carefully introduced with two turns long spax screws so to be able to turn the brush on its axis during the oil treatment. This also served as a means to suspended them later so that they would have no contact with the ground over the 24 hours drying period before the second oil coat could be applied.
The second oil treatment was applied 24 hours after the first one was completely dry and the handle could be touched. A third coat was not necessary, probably due to the age and the hardness of the wood.
The first impression with the Black Badger knot - which should correspond to the age of the handle.......
whilst the other gets comparatively the Finest Badger Knot Fan XH ................
another constellation...................
Contrary to expectations, I like the two blonde Finest Badger knot on both wooden handles a bit better, probably because the original knots had a similar shape.
The penultimate two pictures show the brush after completion. I used two-component adhesive.
The final image shows the brush after first use and the brush in bloom. The TGN Finest does imho not bloom as much as other Silvertip hair.
I will give further feedback when the brushes have been used more regularly.
I will give further feedback when the brushes have been used more regularly.
Thx for your reading 
