Harvesting an SOC boar knot

So, I have this very pretty brush handle that had a horsehair knot in it that I just could not become friends with. So now the horsey is gone bye-bye:



...and I think I'm going to put a boar knot in it. The hole at the top is roughly 26mm. I generally have preferred Semogues to Omegas. And I don't have an SOC, so I am thinking that is the way I'd like to go. It's listed as 24mm.

I thought there was a thread about harvesting Semogue knots here, but I'm not finding it. But if it does exist, I'd happily just be pointed in that direction.

I saw a post on another forum where someone sawed through the handle, poked out the whole metal cup the knot sits in, dremeled off the top rim of that cup, and used that in a new handle. However, I am concerned that with the meal cup, it will be too wide to fit. Does anyone have experience trying to just steam a Semogue knot out? Any other advice for me on this project

I haven't procured an SOC yet, so I'm also still somewhat open to suggestions of other knots (boar or otherwise) I should be considering as well.

 

I can't help, but I wanted to comment on the nice looking handle. Taking the knot out of an SOC is quite a sacrifice. I hope it goes well with you. Best wishes.

 

Yeah, I won the handle in a giveaway, it was made by a guy named Ray Bukaty. It is a beauty.

I do feel somewhat ambivalent about ruining a nice SOC handle for this, but money-wise they are only about $25 if you order from Vintage Scent, and I may look out for a used one. I suppose another option would be to get a much cheaper, much easier to work with plastic-handled Omega, or just to buy a boar knot from Larry...

 

Larry's is only $13 shipped. That is pretty good. Not sure how it would compare with the SOC knot.

 

The SOC has such a nice handle already, I'd be reluctant to sacrifice it. Maybe an Omega 10049 knot? That might be too big for your handle though. TGN used to have boar knots that I think were Omegas too.

 

There is a bunch of after-market knot vendors. You may want to poke around on the Internet before whacking the SOC. Plus the knots are very easy to install. In this manner, you will have two very nice brushes.

Just a thought........

 

Nice handle Chuck. I say an SOC on one of the BST forums the other day for like 20 bucks. That would have been a solid steal

 

I bought an Omega 80267 for this project today, pretty cheap and the knot should be easy to get out of the plastic handle. 24mm knot with 55mm loft, banded boar.

 

I tried to re-knot an Omega brush knot into a vintage handle and it did not work for me. The Omega knot was in a plastic sleeve which was then glued in to the handle. I removed the plastic sleeve - no problem. I then removed the knot from plastic sleeve. When I tried to glue the knot in to the vintage handle, the glue line from the sleeve made it hard to glue the knot in to the vintage handle. So, if the Omega 80267 has the sleeve you will have to remove the plastic sleeve then remove the knot from the sleeve. Or, mount the sleeved knot in to your handle. To get the Omega knot in to the vintage handle and get below the glue line resulted in a knot with a very stiff backbone. I tossed the Omega knot and got a "clean" knot from Virginia Sheng. I always wondered what the deal was with the "ring" at the base of the Omega brushes....now I know. I can only surmise that it is easier and cheaper for Omega to get the pre-mounted knots/sleeve than to mount a "virgin" knot in to their handles. I wish you the best and hope 80267 knot is not mounted in to one of Omega's plastic sleeves. As a side note, I have also wondered what is below Semogue's metal ring. Perhaps I will cut up a 1470 some day. Please keep us posted on your progress.

 

Hmm, thanks for the heads-up. I'll keep a running account of how it goes here.

 

Thanks. Also, I have some banded boar knots. If you will send me the "mm" of the knot base, I will send you one "free gratis" if we have a match. In this manner you can give it a try before cutting up the Omega. Just a thought. Please let me know.

 

Oh wow, thanks. The handle I have has an opening that's 26mm

 

Here is the deal. I am going on vacation early in the morning and will be away for a week. I have a knot which should work. If you can wait a week, I'll mail you the knot. Please PM your mailing address if interested.

 

It can be done very easily (harvest the knot). I would think I must have some pics around here someplace showing how. (See Straight Razor Shave of today) SOC knot in a homemade handle.

 

Thank you, @oscar11 ! I added your user name to my search and quickly found the thread I had been thinking of all along:

http://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/relofting-a-semogue.37682/

It seems very easily do-able so I think I may go that route after all.

 

It seems like an unnecessary tasks considering all the knots available for sale out there. Am I missing something?

 

I dunno, I want to do a boar in this handle, and I just really like Semogue knots. As far as I know you can't get them on their own without a handle. And I think it'll be a fun project.

 

If your happy with what you have, no. But you can change the feel of a knot quite a bit by making some adjustments with loft, hole size etc. Just my preference but I like shorter lofted boars than are available with factory brushes.

 

So, it took me a while, and I ended up kind of playing musical knots, but this project is done. First, I retrieved the SOC knot from its stock handle:



This did require destroying the handle, which is a bit of a shame, but ultimately this is just a project I wanted to do and in taking apart that handle I learned a lot about how Semogue puts their brushes together.

The original plan was to put the SOC knot into the barber handle at the top of this thread, but a acouple things had come up:

I have a custom faux tortoise handle that I love with a 24mm Plisson-type knot in it, and it just had not been getting much use since I bought one of those $10 "Plissoft" brushes from Italian Barber. The IB brush is just perfectly set up, my favorite synthetic I've tried. So I didn't want the tortoiseshell handle to languish unused with my not-my-favorite synthetic knot in it. So I pulled that knot, too. That was easy: since I had set it with silicone, it came right out.

I also had a recently picked up a 24mm Vintage Blades 2-band brush in faux horn. It is everything my 22mm Vintage Blades 2-band brush is, but a little bigger and with a nicer looking handle. So the 22mm knot came out, too. I heard they come out easy with steam, so I gave that a try and it worked great.

Then, I set the SOC knot in the tortoise handle at a fairly short loft of 50mm; set the 2-band VB knot in the barber handle; and found that the 24mm synthetic knot was, of course, too big to fit into the 22mm VB handle. But a little time spent making the opening bigger with my dremel and it fit perfectly. Here's what I ended up with:



The synthetic in the ivory-colored handle is a good brush but pretty superfluous to me, I have it up in a FS/FT ad at the moment and if it doesn't go I'll keep it around to give away to somebody that's starting up or something. The tall handle with the 2-band knot is a lovely brush that I'd reach for more if I bowl lathered, but I still enjoy using. And the short loft SOC is, I think, my favorite of the bunch. I've been working on breaking in the knot and it is coming along very nicely but not getting the "bed head" characteristic of a lot of Semogues, I assume because of the short loft. It has tons of backbone, pleasantly scrubby and does not seem to be a lather hog, which I was worried a bit about with setting the loft so low. Feels good to have a knot I'm really enthusiastic about in what is really my favorite handle.

This has all been my first ventures into re-knotting brushes. I am not the handiest guy, and there were a few hitches along the way, but it made for a really fun project with good results.