Well I picked a real challenge off ebay. At first glance it doesn't look so terrible, but then you see the backside ... "Now that's a crack!" I knew about the crack prior to purchasing it, which came in to play making my offer; ... I wasn't sure I could fix it. I unscrewed the base from the top and remove the knot and its retaining ring. Then I soaked it in hot tap water and dish soap to clean out San Andreas fault of a crack. It wasn't until I had cleaned it with soap and water that I could see it was a Fuller brush (extremely faded). Using super glue I pulled the crack together and clamped it using stretched electrical tape. I also glued the base to the top; hoping that it would aid in holding the crack together. I laid the handle on its side and bridged the former crack with epoxy. I continued bridging inside the handle all the way around; eventually making it look like a hexagon while looking down in to the handle. Sanding and polishing nearly made the crack disappear, but the remaining crack I accentuated with gold paint and polish more. I filled the base with epoxy, due to its translucent base would have made BB's visible in high lighting. I bored it out to take a 25mm fan top tuxedo synthetic knot, and finished cleaning out the opening with a Dremel. I softened the sharp edge from boring it out and finish sanding and polishing the base and final overall polish. Setting the 25mm knot was straight forward and topped off with some weight from BB's. This is the side that had the crack; I touched it up with gold paint figuring if I can't hide it, show it off. Sorry I didn't take more step by step pictures, but by the time I realized it was going to work out nice, I was nearly done. As always ... more to come
Excellent work! Kintsugi "golden joinery", also known as Kintsukuroi "golden repair",is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with laquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise. I may have to reconsider passing up a brush just because it is cracked.
I was thinking of this when I did this. Whats the repair where the item is stitched together with wire or clips?
You are really making me want to get into restoring brushes. I seen tons of vintage brushes, the cracks always scare me away though. Sent from my SM-G930P using Tapatalk
The Ever Ready? in the bottom pic on the right would be a good candidate to restore and would be fairly easy. I'd stay away from the Century in the top pic, du to the bottom delaminating.
I think it was just called "staple repair". I can't find any other name for it. The broken pieces were fitted together and held tightly in place with twine. A wooden bow with a diamond-tipped drill bit was looped around a string and pulled back and forth to make tiny holes on the pieces to be joined. A small length of rigid wire was cut and hammered on an iron anvil to form a small staple, its ends slightly tapering inward. The finished staple was heated and gently tapped into the holes on the side of the piece. When the staple cooled, it formed a tight bond, and the crack was stabilized and watertight. This was way before the invention of glues or epoxies. And way before people could just throw something away because it was broken and go buy a new one.
A Made Rite I restored ... Before After Not perfect, but now repaired, re-weighted and re-knotted with a 22mm Maggard's synthetic. Ready for a new life. As always more to come ...
Thank you, Jim Thank you @Stu929 Thank you, Jim. I worked on making the crack disappear, but it still shows. It was filled with plaster, so I removed it, glued the top to the bottom and re-weighted it. I finalized the bore out to 22mm and finish sanding and polishing. Due to the cream in the handle I opted for the sunrise knot.
One thing I've done in the past to make repairs on other things, is to put in a drop or two of a matching acrylic paint in epoxy. Then it can be sanded down when hardened and then polished. Even if it's not exact, it'll help. I haven't done it to a brush handle yet, but if I get a cracked one........
An Ever Ready 100T restored ... Before ... And after polishing, re-weighting and re-knotting with a 24mm Maggard's tuxedo synthetic knot. A Tuxedo on a Tuxedo! As always more to come ...
