Well, I have had a PC Woodcraft Horse Hair 24 mm Knot for some time now and I just have not had time to put it in a handle until Oscar11 asked if anyone had tried this. http://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/horse-hair-knot.29182/ So I decided to get this into a handle. The knot is set at 53 mm and had been washed in M.A.C. Cleaner and given a through lather break in along my forearms the evening before using. The handle was one that I stained to resemble a aged distressed wood. The handle was bored down so that the knot would be shortened. I applied three layers of Minwax® Polycrylic® inside and out for water protection. A set of hex nuts on a small bolt was placed into the remaining center bore hole to provide some slight ballast. I used E6000 waterproof glue rather than epoxy on this particular handle and knot combination. Here is the finished product. One of the unusual things is that the knot is not symmetrical. Even my Vie Long has a sense of symmetry when you look at the hairs. This one has some spots that seem to be rough cut on the sides. I may have picked the right handle to complement this look. Now to the testing. I moved another item out of testing sequence to get to this one sooner. The lather was made using C.O. Bigelow and the brush is very soft for a horse hair brush. It is much softer than the Vie Long 13061 I have. It approached a Best Badger in softness. However, it is an extremely floppy brush. It is the most floppy brush that I have ever experienced, even with the loft set at 53 mm (barely 53 mm at that). I was able to get through a 3 1/2 pass shave plus a head shave with a dab of cream about the size of a dime. It applied cream gently but without much backbone. I guess that this hair was heavily treated to make it softer. That would also cause a severe reduction in backbone. In conclusion, it is a soft brush for a horse, but if you are expecting the stiffness and quality of other brands of horse knots, then you will need to look elsewhere.
Well, I was ready to roll. I"ll wait and think this through a bit. The knot is sitting perfectly at 48mm. Actually, doesn't feel too bad. They kinda end up with a wild hair do, don't they? I'm going to hold off on gluing it. A grade A silver tip might be more useful. upload pictures
True, but your knot seems to have more uniformity than mine did. You may want to find a handle that is set even as low as 46 mm to get it to work.
GD, I just did a few lathers with it, it might be o.k. I'll use it for a couple of days and see what I think. If I like it, I'll glue it.
I have 4 horse hair brushes and 2 are unuseable, they are mixed horse and boar. As you noted Steve, the knots got the frizzies and never appeared neat. 3 of my horse hair brushes got that cave in middle that GD was talking about. That has made them a pain to use because the middle of the brush collapses in use and it feels uncomfortable and frustrating to use. Just saying this as a warning .
I used the brush this morning, very soft and did a decent job of lathering. I don't think I'm going to be a horse knot fan or at least a fan of this knot.
Yeah, I'm with you. I never expected it to be so friggin floppy. It sucks in my case because a made my brother one to match but with a super silvertip knot, so I have guilt even thinking of getting rid of it. It isn't unusable, but it isn't what I like in a brush.
Is the treatment of the hair what makes it too soft and floppy ? I feel the same way towards the dyed Vie Longs... Especially the 2 band that is used in their higher end brushes. Soft but just too floppy for my taste. I much prefer the Vie Long natural brown, the Vie Long mixed with boar, and the extremely cheap, poorly made, Turkish horse hairs. Just my two cents.
This is a guess on my part, but some badger brushes are chemically treated to induce more softness. It works well on the TGN Super knots because it is used only at the tips, but I think that the dye or a chemical is used on a horse hair, it is used so much to make it soft that it removes too much of the natural stiffness.
A lot of the difference in horse isn't just the softening treatment, but the mix. mane vs tail. The "professional" series are the stiffest, because they have the least mane hair, while the bleached and dyed knot has the most.
