Tinkering with my first brush

Small update. I ordered a TGN finest 24mm bulb knot for this project.

I'll do some fitting and then start the finishing process. My plan is to submerge in tung oil and put it under a slight vacuum. Nothing near full resin stablizing, but I'm hoping it'll help with waterproofing the wood.

Got the knot so here's the obligatory unfinished handle with knot setting loose.



Just looking at it I'm guessing I won't set it nearly as deep as I drilled the hole. It looks tiny compared to the handle sitting that low and I can't see how it would be effective as a brush that way. I'm guessing I'll end up close to the picture which is probably somewhere around 55mm loft.

I'm going to rough out a quick round handle to test the knot in with silicone. Then once I decide on my preferred loft I'll trim the top of this handle to achieve the depth I need and get it finished up.

55 mm loft is very reasonable. It should be very serviceable. It looks very nice as is and will look fabulous when the wood is finished and the knot is in bloom.

Here is the knot at 55mm in a test handle I made last night



Silicone should be cured for a test lather tonight.

Great looking brush. My step dad is an avid wood worker with all the requisite tools. He's a "doer" so I'm always looking for projects that help me spend time with him.

Three questions: 1) Did you bore the hole at the same size (or larger) than the knot? 2) You mention silicone, but is that what you glued the knot to the handle with? Or did you seal with silicone? 3) What did you / will you finish the handle with?

Finally, do you happen to have the link to the folks you bought the knot from?

Again, great job ... you're inspiring me here !

Thanks! I'll answer as best as I can, but others on this forum have a lot more experience me so do some searching and reading, there's tons of info available.

1) I drilled a 1" hole and ordered a 24mm knot. That should theoretically give me an extra 1.4mm in the hole. The knot plug is actually a touch smaller than 24mm, but the hairs bulge out a little just above the plug too, so it's probably about a wash but hard to say without measuring the specific knot you get.

I reasoned that it doesn't matter much as long as you're setting deeper than just the height of the plug, as the hairs will bloom to fill the hole (within reason).

2) I glued the knot in my test handle with silicone so that it would be removable because I'm planning to test different lofts. Once I figure out my final loft I'll modify my original handle to accommodate that and use epoxy. On my test handle I didn't use enough silicone and it let go after a couple test lathers.

3) My plan is an extended soak it in tung oil under a light vacuum. Then I'll take it out, wipe off the excess, and let it cure for awhile. Possibly one more rubbed coat after that.

The knot is a 24mm Finest bulb from www.thegoldennib.com

Awesome, thanks!

I've been using the knot set a touch deeper in my test handle, around 51mm on and off for awhile now and notice that it feels broken in now.

I may still try 48mm before deciding but its working really nicely like this.

So, I'd like to drill a tiny bit more and try this knot at 48mm.

Small problem, I can't get it out of the test handle.

I set it with silicone. Is there a trick to getting it out? I just tried grabbing the knot with one hand and pulling on the handle with the other. Tried twisting motions and nothing. Do I need to cut/split this handle to get it out? That isn't the end of the world but I'd rather avoid it if possible.

Edit: Got it!

I did a test lather with it and decided to give it a try since it was wet and it slowly let go and came out. 48mm, here we come!

Interested to know how you like it set a bit deeper - and a new pic!

Good luck.

I did a test face lather last night and a full shave this morning. I definitely notice a touch more firmness and less splay. I do think I like it a little better but will shave for a week or so to decide.

A compromise at 50mm might be best since I prefer a little bigger feel on my face. I sort of wish I'd bought a fan knot instead of the bulb.

Obviously the lighting is very different, but I scaled the pictures so the handle is the same size for comparison.



Here I made the 52mm slightly translucent and pasted it over top of the 48mm picture.



I'm a little embarrassed to say I like the look of this handle better than the one I started the thread about.

First of all, you have WAY more patience than I do, which is a very good thing.

Second, I really like the way the last picture shows the difference between the two settings. Super cool.

Third, the "test" handle does have a certain rustic charm.

Last, buy another knot for the first handle and keep them both.

Great thread!

Updating after a long break here.

After the difficult removal from silicone the badger knot has begun to shed 6+ hairs per shave. This really is a bummer and I'm upset with myself for it but have been trying to figure out how to move on. Buying another knot is not in the cards at this time.

I don't want to put a shedding knot in my first handle so I've come up with another plan. My 10065 brush has become a favorite of mine so it is being "promoted" to a donor.

Here's the new idea:

The surgery


Getting to know each other


A quick mock-up I hacked together.


The black collar is too big for the hole but instead of opening up the hole I'm going to trim down the plastic since the less I see of that in there the better. It's not off by much anyway.


I think the TGN will just stay in the test handle at 48mm now. I do like that handle and it fits proportionally to my eyes.

Not sure what to do with the 10065 handle. The way they do the black plastic rings the hole is huge. Thoughts for another thread...

Great thread redrider! And you've got two nice brushes now! I'm going to take some of your suggestions, methods and try to make a similar shape. Cept I don't have a belt sander, so maybe I'll go with the Dremel approach.

Thanks! I hope I can figure out how to do a better job finishing the wood on my test handle with the knot still in there. I suspect eventually that knot will run out of hair to shed and I'll maybe do something else with it then. No sense letting the handle get water damaged in the meantime.

A Dremel could be pretty slow. A wood rasp and a sturdy vice might make quicker work of hogging out material. Make sure you make a thread for the rest of us to follow whatever you end up doing.

Do you have enough play to remove the plastic ring completely? They come off super easily.

DrColossus11 said:

Do you have enough play to remove the plastic ring completely? They come off super easily.

Click to expand...

Really? I wasn't sure if the plastic was partially holding the bristles together. If it can come off completely that would probably work fine. Might be a touch loose but I'm sure it'll "bloom" to fill in that much.

How have you taken that off before? Just split it with a chisel and peel away? It looks from the bottom like the plastic was basically the mold for the plug of the knot and they just leave it on.

The plastic is just used to set the knot in the handle. I used a dremel with a cut off wheel and made to cuts to take a small chunk out, then the rest just peeled right off. The knot has the standard plug like you see on the TGN and other knots.

Last night I set my vice so the plastic ring would just rest on it and used an appropriate sized socket to drive the knot out. It ended up splitting the ring pretty clean so I may try to use that to set the 22mm synthetic knot into the plastic omega handle.

The boar knot (sans plastic collar) is a bit smaller than the 1-inch hole already drilled in my handle. I also need to set it fairly high to keep the same loft. I liked the brush the way it was and wasn't looking for more backbone so hopefully this will still work out. I'm going to get my spacer to raise up the knot figured out and set it in there to see how it looks.

If I decide it just isn't going to work my Pro 49 may get a similar treatment that the 10065 did. I'm pretty sure there is enough knot on that one to fill the hole.

It's like musical knots around here!

Finally getting some closure on this one.

I went through some issues with my finish and ended up using Watco Tung Oil finish with a few coats of paste wax over it. I'm not ecstatic about it, but it's functional, reasonably good looking, and done.

Here it is ready to go to work and a shot of my modest face lather from this morning.





Thanks for the support along the way everyone!