Thread: Making my first brush

I just received a couple of really nice knots from one of our vendors and want to turn my own handles. I would rather drill the hole than turn it. I have a 22mm and 24mm knot. My forstner bits are in standard imperial sizes. On paper, a 22 should be slightly smaller than a 7/8" hole and a 24 should be smaller than a 1 inch bit hole.

My math tells me the 24mm knot will have a little more room in the 1" hole, so, how much epoxy can one expect to shim the excess space? Can one wrap the knot in masking tape and expect the epoxy to keep the tape from deteriorating over the long haul?

I think I read that a hole a little large is fine, as the epoxy will not squirt out making a mess. The short question is how tight should the knot fit?

Are you asking about using masking tape to fill the gap between the diameter of the knot and hole? I've only made two brushes myself, but I'd say go for a tighter fit and then sand/drill your handle if needed -- rather than getting a knot too small and needing to fill in space on the edge.

As far as setting the knot into the handle, the more deep you set it the firmer the bristles will be. Conversely if you set it more shallow, the bristles will fan out more.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, I'm asking about the width of the bored hole in the handle. I understand the depth/loft issue. When I make a tenon on a woodworking project and make the fit exact, glue will squeeze out. My concern is that if the knot fits too snug in the hole, epoxy will squish out and make a real mess of the badger. On the other hand, the hold can't be too big. So I guess what I'm asking is how much overage should one allow?

A 1" hole leaves almost a full 16th over, which I suspect is too much for a proper fit. I suppose the answer is to either turn the hole or drill small and sand/turn to fit.

Other thoughts?

i have turned my own, and what i have come up with is that when you do this that you want the brush to slide out of the unglued hole fairly easy. i normally drill a bit small then reem it out then also sand the knot head down just a bit. just the way i do it.

i made my own handle and with a 24mm knot i would recommend a 7/8ths size hole and then grind the plug at the base of the knot down a bit so as to not use so much epoxy to fill the extra space. I used extra epoxy to fill the space and it is a little unsightly. I still love my brush, but id prefer a tighter fit.

I have found a tight fit is better than a loose fit for making a brush. I put a Golden Nib 24 mm knot in a piece of hardwood, fitting each piece with a dremel tool. I modified the knot end so it wasn't so ragged and smoothed it out so it would fit deeper and stronger. It seemed to work for me. If you are worried about the bristles and glue during the process, I put masking tape, (the blue kind), around the bristles. That seemed to take care of the glue mess problem. All in all it worked great for me.