I figured I would start this thread as a central place for people to collect bits and pieces of the knot maker's art, which is unfortunately either a dying skill set, or a closely guarded secret...depending on who you ask.

I keep stumbling across posts by Gary Young, a member of the Simpson family, who worked in the Simpson's factory before it was sold to Vulfix. He is a veritable treasure trove of brush knowledge. (If anyone knows why he was banned from several forums, please let me know).
(Edit: well here's the explanation from TSN)

"The ring of lower outer hair is what we used to call 'collaring'. Some makers called it 'capping'. It is a ring of single hair that is applied to the knot when forming. You don't actually have to trim the hair to form this look. It is a very tricky process which takes a while to get right. Basic 'tools' used to make.
1. Take a small sheet of paper, fold in half along its longest length. (The paper's width needs to be approx. half the hair's length).
2. Take a small quantity of hair and lay it out on the paper, tight against the crease line.
3. Run the back of a metal comb over the hair until a single layer is formed.
4. Fold the paper over the hair and tap the hair tight into the crease.
5. Wrap the hair/paper around the base of the knot.
6. Hold the hairs in place with your fingers and remove the paper.
7. Tie off this collar as per normal knot making
8. Gently form the knot with your fingers to 'blend' the hairs together.
There you go! How to form a collared Simpson knot!"

-Gary Young

Be sure to take a video. I've heard that some badger hair is gathered ethically from living badgers, but never seen video proof.

Badgers are like wolverines. They aren't scared of anything, so use lots of duct tape.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2054502.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xeuropean badger pelts.TRS0&_nkw=european badger pelts&_sacat=0

If you plan on making them commercially, there's some forms to fill out. Natural animal hair processing and importing licences, etc.

American badger doesn't make good brushes. Only European badger and hog badger do.

If you just want presorted hairs, http://18shavingbrush.com/en/badger hair-35-1.html

@GDCarrington knows quite a bit more than I do about brush knots. I might know more about brushes in general, but that's iffy; and there are people on B&B and the Shave Nook who make my brush knowledge strictly amateur level.

What I am good at is information gathering. Unfortunately, that skill is only useful to bloggers and authors, and I am neither.

There's a thread over on B&B that started with a similar premise. A member in Europe sent found badger hair to a number of members in the U.S.

The results were less than spectacular, an none of the members ever finished a brush.

It wasn't so much the difficulty of actually making the knot that killed their enthusiasm for the project. It was the daunting task of sorting the hair.

If one was to go about making their own knots, start with an order of cheap hair from the link I posted above, and once you've learned, order the high quality hair.

As far as I know, the only person (outside of the brush companies) who has ever made his own knots was the owner of iKon, and I think he gave that up to work on razors full time.

There's a few individual knot makers like Lee Sabini and Gary Young, but both those guys were master knot makers at a company. Lee at R.A. Rooney, and Gary at Simpson's. I don't even know if Gary is doing anything other than working on his "History of Simpson's and Coombe" book. Lee makes the Morris & Fondran brushes and supplies knots for the Paladin brushes.

It was probably the DaVinci videos @GDCarrington posted here some time back. They belong in this thread too.

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Could have been the Simpson's videos too.