My first re-knot was a ceramic handle. Knot removal was zero risk. This Solid Set is in great shape, barely used, probably because the knot quality was abysmal. Fine nylon (?) surrounded by a thin hedge of (possibly fake) badger. I had absolutely no qualms about throwing out a vintage knot in this case. Rather than gripping the handle in my vise, I wrapped the knot in painters tape and put the knot in the vise. My cutting tool was a used Gem PTFE blade. The tape held the hair together for disposal - no mess. A few cheapie wood carving chisels made short, easy work of removing the stump. I dremeled the inside of the cavity with a 'large' dremel sanding drum on the lowest speed, removing most of the adhesive residue. I did not have any excess wall thickness to play with, so some residue remains. The available cavity diameter was about 20mm, a little wider at the bottom. My knot inventory included: First choice - 20mm two band badger, glue bump too big to fit. Second try - 20mm black badger, could work, a little tight. But I recently lofted a twin knot into one of my custom handles. Third shot - 18mm boar, great fit, nice look, and when shaving I reach for my boars first. Which means I have a lot of boars. But this is the predestined knot. Lofted at 48mm without any drilling, which will be fine.
This is a Strong Set brush needing a make over. As you can see from the second brush, my youngest pup got a hold of it. So it became a donor for the Strong Set brush. I originally was going to sand down the finish and re-do it, but the varnish was really tough. So I sanded the handle and carefully feathered the edges of the varnish and painted it Tuscan Red and added white paint to the letters...............
Nice restore! Strong Set / Solid Set - red, black, and boar. We have a couple brothers by another mother.
A while back this Lord Chesterfield brush was included in a lot and I really liked the looks of it. Of course it needed work, and I removed this two band badger knot from a Frank Shaving brush. The metal ferrule of the brush had to be enlarged, which was what I was going to do because of the big crack at the opening. The second pic after I enlarged the hole and cut down the threaded rod beneath the knot. I had to be careful not to make the hole too big as I needed to make the metal ferrule on the knot fit as close as possible to the newly enlarged hole. The last two pics showing the final result................
One of the items I got from @Enrico is this travel boar brush with travel tin. It had two large cracks on each side, running down it's length. The knot was fine and normally I probably would've just filled them in and repaint it. This time though, I decided to fill them in without repainting the brush. I used epoxy with a drop of white paint for the white area and J B Weld for the top black area. There are numerous shades of white, so I knew it wouldn't be an exact match. And the J-B Weld when sanded will actually be a dark grey. After everything cured, which can take hours instead of minutes with paint mixed in with the epoxy, I sanded the handle smooth and gave it a quick polish............
very cool Jim.nice job..i have a culmac travel brush that came in my late 40s brit travel set.it needs a bit of tlc..may try to rejuvenate it..
