Two Band/Bristle Mixed knot (Oumo) 24mm Brushes

[BigJ]

Great work!!

 

[SliceOfLife]

I call this one... Frankenstein's Lather


This handle's been up on eBay for awhile, Seller dropped the price a little every relist... finally it got cheap enough I could risk getting it and not being able to restore/stabilize it so I bit.

Handle started in the 20-22mm realm, Didn't bother measuring, but it needed a little expansion (could easily go to 28-30mm, it's a fatty).

I took some of the powder from sanding it open and mixed that with CA to patch two large cracks (the largest being one the seller had hidden in the listing... lol, because the brush was so perfect otherwise), curious to see how that ages. Would be neat if it had some kind of butterscotching effect after a few years, but who knows, maybe it being reduced to powder or encased in CA will prevent that. I polished the area's I had patched to clean up the CA and that lightened up the butterscotching around them.

Set it at 46mm loft... Anything lower and it looks silly with such a big handle.

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

Cool looking brush.

I think I would have put a much larger knot in it, like maybe 26 or 28 mm, but that's just me. Actually, I can't tell from what you said exactly how large the knot you used is, so maybe I would have been forced by knot size availability to use the same size you used. Dimensions in photos are tricky, right?

You find the coolest handles and do amazing things with them.

Happy shaves,

Jim

 

[SliceOfLife]

These are all using the 24mm mixed knots, and yeah, It'd fit a 26mm or 28mm nice and probably take up to 30mm... but it was <24mm originally, so hopefully once it blooms it'll look more natural.

Here it is bloomed.

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

These are all using the 24mm mixed knots, and yeah, It'd fit a 26mm or 28mm nice and probably take up to 30mm... but it was <24mm originally, so hopefully once it blooms it'll look more natural.

That's one huge handle!

 

[Owen Bawn]

These are all using the 24mm mixed knots, and yeah, It'd fit a 26mm or 28mm nice and probably take up to 30mm... but it was <24mm originally, so hopefully once it blooms it'll look more natural.

Here it is bloomed.View attachment 1118125

Someone may have already written this but I think that looks like a Rooney handle. There were a couple N/OS on ebay last time I looked.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I think it is a Rooney. They had a few variations of this shape and the major differences were how fat the handle was. This is probably the fattest version.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Time for an update:

After making this batch of brushes, I shaved with the duke-handled brush a bunch, then that Frankenstein Rooney a bunch. No problems. I then switched to the two lowest lofted brushes to soften them up(the rebadged Plisson faux tortoise handle and the really stubby EverReady persian-jar style handle). They shed like I have not seen before for the past 2-3 weeks. 5-10+ hairs most shaves. They FINALLY seem to be slowing down. Had a couple no-shed shaves from each the past few days, but definitely considering these two may be shedders. Most of the hairs appear too short to have been seated, and don't look broken... so I'm guessing the knots were just so dense that the hairs were trapped in there tight enough to survive a handful of shaves. I'll update again in a week or two to confirm if they stopped or not.

I've been being fairly aggressive with them (not abusive, but certainly a bit rougher than I typically am) to ensure I get ALL the loose hairs out as fast as possible... as I've got a lot of these knots and I want to see if this is a persistent problem or if they just used a few "too short" hairs for a couple of these knots.

Also considering that as they're set so deep, maybe I didn't smooth the cup of the handle enough and it's cutting hairs... but the hairs seem primarily from the interior of the knot, not the outer hairs, so that doesn't seem likely. And no, I don't twist or rotate the brush in use.

Also of note, the shed hairs are overwhelmingly the boar bristles... very few badger hairs coming out.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Ok, so update. The two shortest brushes I spoke about are one butterscotch and the faux tortoise plisson handle. Gave them a week off and when I went back to use them the Plisson handle's knot was loose (they're seated with silicone, so it's definitely not a permanent adhesive and this wasn't much of a surprise), I took the opportunity to remove the knot and let it air out to a full bloom and comb it very, very thoroughly. It lost a lot more hairs 20+, probably about 50 (enough I didn't bother counting). Gonna stick it in another handle and see if that got rid of all the loose hairs or if this is just a doomed knot. If the latter, at least it's out and I can put a good knot in there... if it's done shedding I've got a nice broken in knot to stick in whatever handle I want.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So I pulled the knot that fell out and set it aside.. last 3 shaves it wasn't shedding, but I'll test it again before gluing it. Focusing on the other shedder. Still losing 3-10 hairs per shave. Probably give it another month and then decide if I want to remove it, toss the knot and put another knot in.

Been using the other brushes here and there and they aren't shedding that I can tell yet... possibly just 2 bad knots?

 

[LJS]

Two of how many exactly?

 

[SliceOfLife]

25 total, 12 have been used. So 1 or 2 / 12 are shedders.

So the one that came out I set aside for now... I'll re-evaluate it once I finish with the other 11 I've got made.

First run through the 10 I haven't been using lately, no new shedders. The second brush that I was testing for the past month (the one of the two likely shedders whose knot didn't come loose) I have given up on. It's a shedder. Multiple 15-20 lost hair shaves lately. It's getting put aside to be dealt with later. I'll probably give the other ten a couple more shaves each and then stick the fallen out knot into something and see if it's actually stopped shedding or if it was just faking too.



So:

1 confirmed bad shedder

1 possible, waiting more testing

10 seem ok.

13 untested

/ 25



Edit: Oh yeah, just pulled it out and once the handle was no longer pinching the knot above the base, I'm able to pull hair out in clumps... this knot is clearly defective.

Picture is the hair that fell out when I brushed my hand across the top of the knot lightly a few times after getting it out. Keep in mind this knots been used 30+ times and been shedding most of those shaves... anything loose should already be gone.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Combed it out and here it is among its fallen.

I'll let it dry a couple days and give it a few lathers to see if maybe it was just a massive amount of unseated hairs that were friction pinned or if it's a nonstop shedder.

 

[LJS]

That’s too bad - sorry to hear it. They sure look good and I like specs.

 

[SliceOfLife]

They're great knots. Hopefully these two eventually stop shedding, but if not at least I have plenty of replacements.

That said, the lesson I learned is to just buy from ApShaveCo next time. I barely saved anything buying direct, had to take a ton of knots to do so, and had I gotten knots from APShaveCo instead and gotten shedders, much easier to ask the vendor to make it right.

 

[BudgetShaverGuy]

This thread is really making me want to binge-buy some badgers.

 

[LJS]

That said, the lesson I learned is to just buy from ApShaveCo next time.

That’s pretty solid advice. Thanks for taking the learning curve and sharing for the rest of us.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So knot from #33 was trialed twice more and keeps shedding heavy. I'll probably give it away or throw it in a junk lot. Still an awesome knot... but you have to put up with 3+ hairs being lost per shave... not worth it when I have 24 others waiting to replace it.

The other potential shedder was combed like that one was and DIDN'T shed like it had (combed out 3-5 hairs is all)... then tested again and only lost a single hair, so I'll give it a couple more runs and decide if it's worthy of being reset in another handle. If it reverts to its shedding ways it'll suffer the same fate as its brother. These knots are too nice to waste much more time trying to decide if they're shedders or not. I want to get back to just using and enjoying them.

I'm not sure how I miscounted... but unless I've misplaced some brushes I've actually only used 10 of these knots so far... so 1 out of 10 is looking to be a shedder. I'll probably be using another couple in the next week or two, so I'll update if I come across any more.

I did score a Simpson (56 iirc) handle that it looks like someone ran over with their car that I will attempt to repair with plastic resin/epoxy once it arrives... possibly a Frankenstein's Lather II... but the knot actually looks like it's immaculate, so probably not. Still, I've got another 10 handles here ready to go.

 

[Chan Eil Whiskers]

This 70/30 is my only Maggard knot. I have the Omega Mighty Midget and the Semogue SOC Mistura which are both mixed knots as you know. The 70/30 continues to shed (just like the ones you describe) and has been a bear to break in to a decent level where much of the bad scritch has disappeared. It took at least two or three months of frequent use and/or offline breaking in to get the knot to change.

It's always been deliciously scrubby (but too pokey). It is improved, but still, I think, breaking in, and still improving. I want it to improve a bit more (and then it'll be a favorite).

I don't like the AP Shave gel knot I have (I don't hate it either) and wouldn't order another knot I know to be gel. Very interesting how much yours from China have varied. Kinda amazing.

Happy shaves,

Jim

 

[SliceOfLife]

So I got it. Knot was kind of trashed from the sellers attempt to glue the handle back together, it destroyed most of the outer hair. I pulled the knot out and glued the handle a bit more cleanly, then I sanded down the High Points and then I filled the gaps... Needs to cure 24 hrs then I'm gonna have to go over it again for a final sanding and Dremel out the remaining parts of the knot and it’ll be ready.

Oh and it's a 58, not a 56.

24mm, so shouldn't have to widen it. Just have to get those edge hairs out.