Found a couple old brushes at the local junk shop. An Ever-Ready 150 and a Stag B754. They look like a couple of unwanted shelter dogs. Definitely well-used and in need of some TLC. A bargain at $2 each. First thing is a haircut with a utility knife and a new sharp blade. Looking better already! Now to get the rest of the old, stinky knots out. Used a drill press with a forstner bit to get most of the knot bases out. Cleaned up the inside edges using a dremel with a sanding drum. All drilled out. Both handles ended up 22mm. I wanted to fill the hollow handles and add a little weight. Fishing weights and BB's were too heavy for my liking. I used water-softener resin beads. Sand or similar would have worked, too. But I had the beads onhand. It added a little heft to the handles without making them heavy. 2-part gorilla epoxy to glue the knots in. It's not very expensive, easy to find, easy to mix and allows adjustment time while still setting up pretty quickly. Here is the Ever-Ready filled with softener beads. I packed them in and epoxied a washer on top. Next up is cleaning and re-lettering. I used Dawn soap, Scrubbing bubbles and a stiff-bristled brush to clean the handles. Lots of old crud came off. Rinsed and repeated many times as crud was under the crud. I followed that up with a good polish using automotive "swirl remover". The "dy" on Ever-Ready was either worn down or never embossed deep enough. Either way I left that as-is. The stag lettering was very good to begin with. A touch-up with gold paint made it "pop". Ordered knots from Whipped Dog. A Pure Black and a Synthetic 22mm. Shipping was quick. Larry sends a small packet of OxiClean and instructions on how to wash the new brushes. New knots ready to be epoxied. After the epoxy was cured, I mixed up the oxi-clean packet and water and gave the new brushes a good soak. This is the water after cleaning. Knots are natural animal hair and are not the cleanest thing in the world even when brand new. I am unsure if all of this was from the pure black as I soaked it together with the synthetic. All done! Washing causes them to bloom a little bit. The natural more than the synth.
Great job. Also a superb job of documenting the process. The brushes are ready for another 50 years. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Both brushes came out really well. Thank you for showing the process you used and explaining it clearly.