There has been alot of talk on the board lately about luxury brushes, high dollar brushes, whats best,etc. I don't do so good with factory made brushes. I always feel a little tweak would usually improve their performance. Personally if I was choosing a factory brush I'd be looking for a Rooney or a M&F. Obviously the problem is trying to find one. I only own 2 factory brushes both Simpsons, one Manchurian, one synthetic and yes, I'd like to shorten the Manchurian a couple of mm and increase the loft a couple mm on the synthetic. As most of you know I'm a hobby brush maker and I've done alot of experimentation with knots, loft, hair type, etc. Here's my perfect brush. I'm not wild about the handle but again I like to experiment with style and this is where my head was at when I made the brush and I'm trying not to mess with it and view it as a sign post of where I was at the time the brush was made. You can always change a handle but I hope I don't. I have about $110 dollars in this brush. Most of that is due to the Shavemac silver tip knot. I don't consider this as a high dollar brush but it's big on luxury and performance for my taste. Let's see your perfect brush.
Here’s two brushes that I have and absolutely love. The one on the left is the JR 221 with a Maggards synthetic knot. The handle is just gorgeous. The other is a Semogue boar (810 or 830 - I forgot) that is by far my favorite knot. All in price is $50.
I will have to dig out a pic, but for the past few years the Semogue BC Mistura has been my favoite. It is a stubby mixed knot that works surprisingly well for me. If I could figure out how to safely remove the knot, I would put it in a different handle.
Here is a link on how I removed a Semogue knot. Gotta be real care when removing the wood around the knot. I used a sharp pocket knife and needle nose pliers. http://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/semogue-1520-made-rite-5-re-knot-restore.49234/
Nice. I may motivate to give this a try. I do have an extra in case I pooch it. It would suck, but not be the end of the world.
My personal perfect brush is the HJM boar. Good backbone, nice quality handle, a smallish brush (18mm) and you can get them for $11-20 on Amazon. HJM also makes a similar brush in badger and synthetic with a more modern-looking handle that go for about $20 that is nice too. All of those brushes are made in Germany too, which is cool, IMO. Omega makes some nice brushes in the $10-15 range too but a lot of them kind of look and feel cheap, IMO.
This is JR#18. I made this from spalted maple and put a silvertip badger in it. This was back in the beginning when I did not have a lathe. It is still one of my favorites if not the favorite. I won't mention any names, but I have a green brush in the works that may end up being my perfect brush.
My Shavemac/Rudy Vey caused me to pack all my other brushes away. For me the Shavemac knot blows away the Simpson that I have.
This is my Perfect brush. I've had it for almost 1 year now. Contacted Nathan Clark and had him make it for me. Everything about this brush is perfect fro me.
I've been toying with the idea of doing a flat top in a DO1 in a silver tip. I had one in a DO1 2 band and it was an excellent brush. Both of the above flat tops are gorgeous.
Clint is the top part of your brush (white and black) laminated or for lack of better terms painted in the grooves?
It was part of a group buy on Against the Grain which made it cheaper but it was $125 including shipping to the US