I recently became interested in horse hair brushes and saw the Shave Forge knots mentioned favorably in some old threads. I wasn’t familiar with this company, having used a lot of knots from Whipped Dog, Ace Shaving and The Golden Nib but I haven’t restored a brush in many years. I decided to order a brown horse hair from Shave Forge and also ended up getting two of their synthetic knots as well. I like the handles but I’ve never been real happy with the knots I put in these so this was a chance to upgrade them.
The Ever-Ready 100 on the left had an Ace Shaving boar knot that wasn’t bad but it was starting to shed a lot, it now has a brown horse hair knot in it. I’ve used it three times and so far I really like it, a definite improvement. As this was my first time using horse hair I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I may buy one of their white horse hair knots to replace the knot in another handle.
The Rubberset in the middle had a TGN pure badger knot, it was decent but nothing special. It now has a grey and black synthetic. I really like synthetic knots and this one is very good, soft and maybe just a bit less dense than the older TGN and Whipped Dog synthetics I’ve been using. Not overly thrilled with the color now that I have it, has almost a blue hue in certain light but appearance is secondary to performance and the performance is very good.
The third one is an Ever-Ready C40 that had a black badger in it that was shedding badly, it now carries a white synthetic and performance is identical to the grey and black one.
So far I’ve been very happy with the Shave Forge company, prices are great and shipping was very quick. Obviously I can’t speak for their long term durability, only time will tell.
The Ever-Ready 100 on the left had an Ace Shaving boar knot that wasn’t bad but it was starting to shed a lot, it now has a brown horse hair knot in it. I’ve used it three times and so far I really like it, a definite improvement. As this was my first time using horse hair I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I may buy one of their white horse hair knots to replace the knot in another handle.
The Rubberset in the middle had a TGN pure badger knot, it was decent but nothing special. It now has a grey and black synthetic. I really like synthetic knots and this one is very good, soft and maybe just a bit less dense than the older TGN and Whipped Dog synthetics I’ve been using. Not overly thrilled with the color now that I have it, has almost a blue hue in certain light but appearance is secondary to performance and the performance is very good.
The third one is an Ever-Ready C40 that had a black badger in it that was shedding badly, it now carries a white synthetic and performance is identical to the grey and black one.
So far I’ve been very happy with the Shave Forge company, prices are great and shipping was very quick. Obviously I can’t speak for their long term durability, only time will tell.
