Putting Together Your Own Shave Brush

hitemfrank

I decided to make this thread after remembering a thread where someone on here was looking for someone to reknot his shaving brush. So this thread should be a very simple walkthrough of how to do it.

First off, you are going to need a shave brush handle. These can be bought in many places (ebay & other specialty sites). Things to consider for the handle are the size of the handle, the size of the hole in the handle, handle material and of course the price.

Once you have picked your brush handle you need to pick the hair you want in the handle. Your choices here are badger, boar, synthetic and horse (if you can find it). The size of the knot you order will be determined by the size of the hole in the handle.

You will also need some epoxy, a measuring tape, and something to raise the knot in the hole to the desired depth. Some rubber gloves wouldn't be a bad idea either.



The handle in the picture is olive wood and comes with a 24mm hole which I expanded to about 25mm. This was because the knot is also 24mm but it needs a little bit of extra room to fit in. The 2 black circles are actually 4mm thick tap washers I trimmed to fit the 24mm hole of the handle.


The knot is 63mm tall synthetic knot. Synthetic knots generally need to be set slightly higher than a badger of the same size. No idea why the picture uploaded upside down.


The depth of the hole is 19mm. So if nothing was used to raise the knot up, it would be too short. There would be 44mm of hair above the handle.

I wanted to see the knot so that there would be 52mm of hair about the handle. This meant I needed raise the base of the hole 8mm, which is where the washers come into play. I would set a 24mm silvertip badger at about 48mm.


The depth of the hole with the washers in place.


The finished brush on the left, beside one I did some time last year with a 24mm badger knot. Both olive wood (pretty good water resistance). I just need to wait a day or two for the epoxy to be completely cured and it's good to go.


I'll post some links to brush handles and where to get some different types of hair later on.

skankles

Nice job. There's an Israeli guy on eBay is that who you got the handle's off. I was gonna purchase

hitemfrank

Yeah it more than likely is. This is who I got mine from..

macrob77

Very well written. Turning a brush handle is on my to do list.

Maciek.

hitemfrank

macrob77 wrote: »

Very well written. Turning a brush handle is on my to do list.

Maciek.

If there is anyone with the ability to do it it's you Maciek. I'm sure you'll take to it like a duck to water.

I've unfortunately had to cancel a project with one of the wood turners on boards.ie to turn a handle work for. Stupid left leg needs physiotherapy so had to cancel a couple of projects I had in the pipeline to pay for it

hitemfrank

I just saw I said I would put links to handles and hair so I'll try do that tomorrow.

macrob77

My problem is that i have many ideas but i don't have enough time.

I hope that you are getting better

hitemfrank

Shave Brush Handles
Olivewood Handle

Whipped Dog resin handles

The Golden Nib

Frank Shaving

Shave Brush Hair
Whipped Dog - badger, boar and synthetic

The Golden Nib - badger, boar and synthetic knots

Frank Shaving - badger and synthetic

Ian Tang - badger and synthetic



That's just a small list of places where you can get stuff. I'm sure there are plenty of others I've missed out on and that there are plenty of custom brush makers out there who would supply you with just a handle if you wish.

Gran Hermano

For some reason I'm craving a customised wood turned handle (big oak?) With an old pre euro coin showing my year of birth and the Eire side on the base.

I can't be alone in my madness!

hitemfrank

Gran Hermano wrote: »

For some reason I'm craving a customised wood turned handle (big oak?) With an old pre euro coin showing my year of birth and the Eire side on the base.

I can't be alone in my madness!

I've seen a few handles with silver dollars inset in the base. They look pretty good when done right. There are a few woodturners on here who could probably do it for you if you asked nicely.

beardybrewer

Olive wood is a lovely material. Looks great!

hitemfrank

I figured I would give this a bump as I finished restoring a brush this morning.

So you'll need the brush and the new knot of hair you want to put in the handle



In this case it's a vintage Ever Ready 150w and a 20mm knot (high mountain badger) from Larry at Whipped Dog.

After you have those you need to remove the old knot. Pulling it out with a pliers worked well for the red brush in the first picture but the knot in this handle was more stubborn. There is a shelf under the knot which sets the height of the knot. In the red handled brush the shelf came out with the hair but in this one I had to drill out the shelf.

I had to widen the opening also - the handle was designed for 19mm so had to open the hole to allow the new knot to fit in the handle. This left me with a handle without hair that was dull so I set about polishing it.



Brasso works great on plastic handled brushes.



Now the handle is nice and shiny but the lettering looks pretty bad. Time to paint the letters. A couple of coats of gold acrylic enamel paint later I was delighted with the result.



That's all there was to do on the handle so next it was time to set the knot. The handle was very light so I put in some 10 cent pieces to give the handle some heft (6 of them in fact).



After that I built up the epoxy in 2 stages (if you fill the handle entirely in one go the heat it gives off as it sets can damage the handle) I had a new shelf for the knot to sit on. So then I just added some more epoxy and the knot and let it set up.



The knot has 46mm of loft, which from restoring the red handled one at the same height, turns out to be an ideal loft for me for face lathering.

Before and after

OldRio

Thanks a lot for the info. We keep horses therefore the hair isn't a problem. Would love to turn some of the hardwood we have about but buying online might be my easiest option.

hitemfrank

If you have the stuff needed to turn it, go for it. Making the knot from horsehair would actually probably be your biggest challenge.

Red Damo

I actually managed to turn a handle using a cheap argos drill and a drill press stand from lidl. A lathe would have been faster but after an hour with the 1st 5 mins on a belt sander and then 40 grit, 80 grit and 120 to finish, I got a really nice handle - made from acacia, left over bits from a chopping board. And I tried the super glue finish you see on youtube. Got it eventually but painful. Going to try polyurethane on the next one.