TheShaveDen

From Russia With Love opens with the characteristically dapper James Bond in the yard of an opulent mansion at night. A sound catches his attention, closely followed by another, and he determines that he’s being followed. This determining is noticed by the follower, who we see skulking along the adjacent shrubbery, and he abandons all pretense of secrecy by loudly cocking his gun. He’s after Bond, and he doesn’t need the veil of cover anymore—he’s got him in his sights.

Bond seems alert but unperturbed. This is his second film, but even if we haven’t seen the first one (Dr. No) and are just being introduced to him, we have a feeling that this guy can handle himself. Dressed to the nines in a tailored tux, immaculately groomed … and look at the face that bears that knowing little smirk. It’s the smirk that seems to know how it ends, the current situation that you all are so worried about. The danger, the excitement, the uncertainty … you might be worried, but that smirk says Bond knows that in the end he gets the better of the stalker, that he escapes the trap, saves the day, gets the girl. He got up early this morning and ate a good breakfast while you were still sleeping. His clothing looks like it was hand-crafted by the world’s finest tailor, his hair carefully cut by the greatest of barbers; and Bond looks like he just shaved. He looks like he just shaved five minutes ago. That alert, calculating, amused and almost slightly bored face has a perfect shave.

We assumed this guy can handle himself from the beginning, even if we’ve lived under a rock all our lives and don’t know who James Bond is, because a guy who can get a shave like that can handle himself, period. This may not even be a conscious realization on our part, but it’s a realization none the less. And it’s the simply agedness of the movie. Things look different, and with the ability to peer into such a sharp and clear window into the past we look for everything to be different. The cars look different, so the laws of physics that govern their behavior as they move about must be different. There’s a tendency to assume, sometimes falsely, that older means higher quality. But man, look at that guy’s shave—they must have had some kind of secret, special kind of shaving equipment they used back then. And if the old kind of gear is superior, well then obviously the new stuff is inferior. I mean, watch a movie made recently. You just don’t see guys with shaves that good. Most of the time they’re not even shaved, they’re sporting two or three days’ growth. That’s the trend now, and it’s no longer considered a vagrant look. Guys in expensive business suits go to work with a 500-dollar briefcase and they haven’t shaved in a week. If the subject comes up, they talk about how much they just hate to shave, and they do it as little as they can get away with.

But there are those of us who live now, all these years past the Sean Connery 007 years, and we like his shave, and we want it for ourselves. We like the process of getting it, too. So how do we do it? Well, there are a lot of ways, but we know it can’t be gotten from that bad, bad man hiding over there behind the shrubs. He’s the new guy, the one who snuck up on us. He comes in aerosol cans and cartridges, and we hear him chamber his wicked guns in the dark, and we need to get out of there, go with Bond. But then the unthinkable happens: he sneaks up on Bond, he pulls a cord from his wrist watch, he starts choking Bond out, he gets Bond down to the ground. He’s the bad guy, and he’s beating James Bond! How can this be, we’re not yet ten minutes into the movie?

The bad, bad man stoops down and touches Bond’s face. He grips the side of it, pulls, and removes it. It was a mask. Lights come on, all over the outside of the house. It’s a training facility, and this dark and sinister villain has brought down a false Bond. He will not bring down the real Bond, only the false one. In this new, bright light, we get a better look at the villain, and we see that it looks like he’s got a pretty darn good shave, too. Maybe it was the lighting. Or something to do with perspective.

Happy Wednesday From Florida!

So awhile back, I slapped together a Green Ever Ready Rubberset brush for myself, re-purposing the horse knot from a Bestshave #6 Turkish Horse.

BabyGirl / BG / SWMBO / AKA Shawna [SLASH]decided[/SLASH] [SLASH]declared[/SLASH] [SLASH]demanded[/SLASH] sweetly asked if I would make one for her too.

Now if you have ever went in search for a Greenie of your own, you quickly found out that along with Butterscotch the Greenie is very popular and as such comands a fairly high price as it relates to vintage handles. Ebay bidding for them can get pretty high, sometimes as high as $50.00! Fortunately for me I know that even the nastiest Greenie can be snapped back to glory with a few hours of sanding (and now you do too!)

So here it is; A Horse Of Her Own...


Here is what I started with. As you can see, the Greenie has seen brighter days and next to it is our donor horse. Some people might think that the Greenie is better off left in its current state, that thought does have some merit, but I don't much care for the drab olive green with butterscotch swirl motif. After seeing the thread about the evolution of Butterscotch and judging by the end result, I think this handle started bright green with white swirls that turns butterscotch over time.



Speaking of brighter days, here is a great song by one of my favorite bands, Mofro (before changing their name to JJ Grey & Mofro.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghhIQvDsNKs

Here is the Greenie after its haircut.



I have restored a handful of brushes now and find the process to be very relaxing. Here, I have retired to the porch for a sanding session. I have the Greenie soaking in some hot water and in another bowl I have 200, 320, and 400 grit sand paper soaking in water with a bit of dish detergent in the water to provide a little slip. My Dremel and Dremel accessories are standing by, as is about three fingers of Scotch on the rocks...life is good!



Here we are awhile later, the color change is very dramatic!



So a couple of Scotches and a few hours later, BG and Trix came out to check on me. Wow! Where did the sun go!?!



Hours later the brush is coming along nicely and the water is full of decades old nastiness.



I resumed sanding operations the next day. Now that I am putting this article together I realized that there are a couple of pictures missing. I got so caught up in the job I forgot to stop and take a picture of drilling the knot out. I did pause long enough to snap some pix after I had the knot out.



There are threads around here that talk about special bits for this kind of work but all I do is drill a pilot hole down the middle of the old knot and then use sanding drums to slowly ream the old knot out.



Starting with 200 grit and moving up to 320 and then 400 and then a Scotch Brite pad, several hours / days later you end up with something looking like this:



Now that the handle is done it is time to turn our attention to yanking the donor knot. I am a fan of the #6 Turkish Horse and BG is too. Some folks have pointed out QC issues, but considering the brush is less than $5.00 delivered I am okay with buying a dozen and picking out the best of the knots and since I am not going to use the handle it does not matter to me if the knot is not fully seated in glue.



With a cutoff wheel in the Dremel we start sectioning the wood handle.



Once you get the handle sectioned, you can stick a knife in the slots and break the sectioned chips off. Eventually the knot which is embedded in a polymer and wood dust base will plop out.



Now we need to start getting the knot plug cut down to fit in the handle.

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