Here it is, folks! My latest from the workshop of Gary Carrington. It's a custom restored Ever-Ready 150 with a terrific 28mm Ace Shaving Company 3-band silvertip badger knot set at 54mm. I wish you could try this brush, folks! It's dense, with nice backbone, and with truly luxurios soft tips and wonderful face feel. Congratulations Gary, and thank you!
Great job, I love how the vintage brushes look when you put much larger knots in them. I have this exact brush with a 24mm and I really like it, I can only imagine a 28!
I'm not sure I know what "wonky" means. If there is a negative connotation, the answer is definitely "NO"! I've owned over 30 brushes, including some top-of-the-line silvertips. This brush is very high quality. and may be the finest I've ever owned.
It looks of a mighty fine quality, "wonky" means not even/straight. Just the knot looks as though its leaning, but it's probably just perspective of the pics. Still very much a thing of beauty!
The hairs on that knot happen to be longer in the dark band on one side than the other. That is not a photographic issue. The larger knots I have seen tend to have a little bit of this off angle look. I think that the hairs from two badgers were mixed together to make the knot without aligning the various bands for proper aesthetics. If does not affect the performance however since the tips are where the face action is. Matty, you are actually bring up an excellent point. People ask about the reason why some brushes are 250 USD and others are 65 USD when they both are using Silvertip hairs. One of the reasons may be that there is usually more time taken to match up the hairs in banding and tip length to make a more uniform knot. That takes time and that is costly to do and translates into some, but not all, of the higher costs.
Now there was an interesting back story behind this particular brush. Jim had this brush stored away for some time. He had bought this "restored brush" because he liked the handle. When he got it there was one major flaw. It had epoxy all over the knot and all over the top of the handle. This was what it looked like. So when Jim brought this out of storage we discussed whether or not I could do anything with this, or was it a total loss. I told him to ship it to me and I would see what could and could not be done. When I got the handle I saw that whoever attempted to restore this brush decided to use what seemed like and entire tube of epoxy on the knot and much of it leeched into the hairs at the base of the brush. The worse thing was the knot was really nice and it could have been a very good restoration, but too much epoxy made a mess. A shoddy attempt at restoring. At the time I was busy on a few projects, but I realized that Jim wanted to have the brush done quickly due to personal obligations that were coming up. I told Jim that I thought the best way to approach this was to remove the offensive area entirely and make a big brush. After some careful measurements, I realized that I could clear a 28 mm knot if I sheared off the top after removing the "old" knot. I gave a warning though that this was major surgery and that if the handle broke from the vast quantity of epoxy, that there would be no way to correct the issue. Since the brush was useless, we decided to go for broke to restore it. After discussion we decided that the ACE 28 mm Silvertip was in order. So that I did, order the knot that is, and then waited about a week to get it. After receiving the knot, I quickly got to work. I decided to just work on the brush without a lot of documentation to speed up the process. I did not know whether drilling with the power drill would damage the handle. After about an hour of drilling and then cutting away the remaining top, enough clearance was provided so that the knot could fit with enough depth to provide a loft of 54 mm. Then the handle was filled with epoxy and copper shot to provide a solid weight to the brush. After the brush handle finished curing, the knot was installed and epoxied in without having the same condition that required the second restoration to be performed. Jim received the brush and noted that the size was large and luxurious and the 54 mm loft provided excellent backbone. Plus it is very hefty and solid. So there is the back story concerning of the twice restored Ever Ready. Jim I am glad you are enjoying this brush! Use it in good health!
