Does anybody own one of these brushes? I'm kind of interested in one if they are of a good quality. If I'm not mistaken, didn't B&B or SMF do a special edition Shavemac brush with these handles not too long ago?
wow, those are nice looking handles... But a bit pricey, I think, coming out of Viet Nam. You can get a hand-tailored suit for $50 over there, I'm told. Speaking of which, I really need to make it over there.
He put together a limited edition brush for all the major shaving forums, using kimson handles, and shavemac knots. It was a combined group buy effort. Like Will said, definitely ask Neale.
But I can't shave with a suit! :happy102 By the way, my wife is Vietnamese (born and raised in Saigon -- to this day, many Vietnamese refuse to recognize it as Ho Chi Minh City), and she says the $50 suit would be a big POS.
The Kimson brushes are full brushes now. Used to be he just sold the handles (at a reasonable rate), if I recall correctly. Neale will know more.
Thanks, JoAnna, I was wondering about that. The info at the site is a little ambiguous and I wasn't sure if the price included the knot. So, now the question is, how good are his knots? If they are good knots, 50 bones (+ 9 for shipping, I believe) does not sound bad at all. Neale, buddy, where are you?
I did a little exploring--the link you gave was to handles only, but the full brushes here start at 55 and run to 179. The knots are almost guaranteed to be Chinese machine made, aren't they? I'm inquiring about the source of the knots, though. They take moneybookers, so that's a relief...
Interesting. I remember his handles being alot more reasonably priced. I say its a pretty good chance that they're just generic chinese knots. I always considered them when they were down at a quarter of the price they are now. I think that group buy went to his head.
I'm sure you could bargain. The last time I spoke with him he seemed pretty desparate for business and pretty annoyed that people didnt want to purchase his products. I dont know if he has a cotinuous contract with shavemac or they just buy handles once in a while from them. Personally, I dont buy his products because we didnt get off to a very good start. And I think you'd have to have a long talk with him about knot size and drilling it.
Bernd at Shavemac made the brushes. While the special pricing was done through the group buy that Neale organized....Bernd is selling the horn handled brushes now. Check them out.
I did check Shavemac already, and that's more than I want to pay. I don't need another brush (don't let Mr. Sandoval hear that!), but if I can get one of these cheaply enough, I'll go for it.
Shavemac brushes arent about the handles, theyre about the hair. They use great hair and make a supurb knot. Its the knot that costs the money, not the handle.
Well, he just replied to my inquiry. I asked him about sourcing and size of the hair, and he said that the knots come from India, that "It is high quality" and that they pay a lot for them. As far as size, well... "The hair size is 21 mm small and 80 mm big." I'm going to ask further about that, because I can't imagine an 80 millimeter loft... Jim
