Harvesting an SOC boar knot

Jayaruh · Nov 17, 2015

Chuck F said: ↑

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.
Click to expand...

Beautiful.

clint64 · Nov 17, 2015

Chuck F said: ↑

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.
Click to expand...

Very nice. They all turned out great.

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Harvesting an SOC boar knot

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Harvesting an SOC boar knot

Jayaruh The Cackalacky House Pet

clint64 Blind Squirrel

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