Both these two small brushes were in desperate need of a reknot. I was somewhat worried I may not find a knot small enough but found 16mm badger specimens from TGN. What started out as a simple pull and replace turned into a nightmare when the Bristle-Tite handle shattered in my hands while trying to pull the old knot with a pair of pliers. To add insult to injury the broken fragements dropped into the 3/4 full garbage can I was working over. After donning surgical gloves and sifting through the garbage with forensic efficiency I managed to find the tiny puzzle pieces. I was lucky the three bakelite fragments fit back together perfectly and with the help of Super Glue I had a usable handle. The rest of the process was rather uneventful. The TGN 16mm Grade A silvertip knot fit the Ever-Ready handle the better of the two so it made the decision of which knot goes in which an easy one. The dremel was needed to open up the handle to fit the 16mm 2 band badger knot as it was a tad bigger of the two knots. Silicone was used to secure the knots so will be waiting until tomorrow before test lathering these little guys. Before: Ready for new knots: Completed:
Most excellent! I love smaller brushes and got some that one of these days (read: years) I will reknot with something similar. Well done.
Nice writeup - and those are two beautiful brushes. I couldn't tell from the pictures that the Bristle-Tite handle has been glued... I might have preferred a blonde boar knot in the Ever-Ready handle to match the color of that base piece, but I guess a 16mm boar would be pretty hard to get hold of.
Thanks, If you look closely in the center pic, you can see a faint diagonal line above the B in Bristle. Most of the visable signs are on the back side from the logo. Youre right on with the boar knot idea. TGN doesnt offer a 16mm and I didnt search anywhere else. Plus Im mostly a badger guy anyways.
A couple test lathers and then soaked the loaded brushes in hot water for awhile. These little guys bloomed nicely. For small knots, they load a decent amount of lather and both have good back bone with soft tips. I do prefer the 2 band knot installed in the Bristle-Tite as it has a bit more back bone. Both will be added to the rotation and used regularly. This really is the best part of brush restoring imo.
Very nice buddy! I get to restore my old wooden handled brushes here soon, I don't have a Dremel however, so I'll have to buy a cheap one.
My dremel is a cheapo knock off and it works great for this kind of work. What brand of knot will you use?
I was thinking TGN but I've been hearing good things about shave revolutions knots lately, that's what Wolf Whiskers uses in theirs too I believe, what other knots can you recommend?
Ok. Do you know with TGN, if they actually have other sizes in some of their types of badger and they're just not listed for sale, or what? Cuz it seems like a lot of sizes are missing.