How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

dcobranchi · Dec 31, 2011

Practice.

Before I tear up any good handles I thought I'd practice on a newish Burma Shave brush that I have. The brush sheds like mad and I figure that even if I trash the handle it will be no big loss. So I cut out all the bristles and then set to work on getting the base of the knot out. Holy crap! It's set in something like ceramic. I can drill through it but it just creates a dusty mess with no indication that it's gonna come out. Is this type knot base common? How do the "pros" here handle these things? The brush has a black rubber(?) ring (cup?) around the top edge of the brush.

hig789 · Dec 31, 2011

My last restore was like this. I just drilled a bunch of small holes in the knot and startedbreaking pieces off with a pair of needle nose pliers. Then I took a dental pick that I use on my guns and started picking at the small pieces till I got it all. It was hell but worth it in the end.

badrunner13 · Dec 31, 2011

hig789 said:
My last restore was like this. I just drilled a bunch of small holes in the knot and startedbreaking pieces off with a pair of needle nose pliers. Then I took a dental pick that I use on my guns and started picking at the small pieces till I got it all. It was hell but worth it in the end.

If you drill small holes through the dust slowly you will see small black specks come up this is the bottom of the cup. This is pretty common, the ring is the standard plug knot that is used in the factory to make it easy to glue the knot in the handle. You have two choices here remove what is in the black cup and insert knot, or continue on and use a dremel sanding drum to carefully find the outside of the cup in 2-3 spots and pry inwards on the cup to remove it. Do not use the handle opening as leverage you will damage it! If you find that you like the black ring and the knot size but you feel the depth of the ring won't allow for the loft you want you can drill the bottom of the cup out for more depth, this may reveal a hollow portion that can be filled with whatever you like (just make sure to glue it unless you like rattles). There are alot of examples here so check em out. If this is for experience only and you aren't in love with the handle I would suggest putting in a pure badger and start looking for your next project.

Very Important! measure carefully ($3 harbor freight caliper works well), TGN knots fit the diameter listed WD open up a little bit past the glue puck and frequently require a bit of handle modification.
Also, fit everything together before mixing the epoxy make sure you have everything where you want it. if you use a filler I suggest gluing in two steps to make sure you have the shelf you want and you don't over glue and ruin the whole project.

P.S.
This may seem like a lot but there is a lot to learn and these tips should help with this project.

Best of luck and welcome to restorations!
BR13

hig789 · Jan 1, 2012

badrunner13 said:
If you drill small holes through the dust slowly you will see small black specks come up this is the bottom of the cup. This is pretty common, the ring is the standard plug knot that is used in the factory to make it easy to glue the knot in the handle. You have two choices here remove what is in the black cup and insert knot, or continue on and use a dremel sanding drum to carefully find the outside of the cup in 2-3 spots and pry inwards on the cup to remove it. Do not use the handle opening as leverage you will damage it! If you find that you like the black ring and the knot size but you feel the depth of the ring won't allow for the loft you want you can drill the bottom of the cup out for more depth, this may reveal a hollow portion that can be filled with whatever you like (just make sure to glue it unless you like rattles). There are alot of examples here so check em out. If this is for experience only and you aren't in love with the handle I would suggest putting in a pure badger and start looking for your next project.

Very Important! measure carefully ($3 harbor freight caliper works well), TGN knots fit the diameter listed WD open up a little bit past the glue puck and frequently require a bit of handle modification.
Also, fit everything together before mixing the epoxy make sure you have everything where you want it. if you use a filler I suggest gluing in two steps to make sure you have the shelf you want and you don't over glue and ruin the whole project.

P.S.
This may seem like a lot but there is a lot to learn and these tips should help with this project.

Best of luck and welcome to restorations!
BR13

Good pointing that out I didn't think about the cup. The one I was referring to was a solid resin handle and the knot had an enormous amount of glue on it. I would suggest not removing the sides of the cup so that it will be flush with the lip of the handle. I recently removed the knot from an Erskine handle and don't think about the cup u tip it was too late not I have an over hang of 2-3mm on each side of the opening. It's a 24mm right not so I am just going to open the hole up a bit and put me a face swollowing 30mm knot in it.

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How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

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