Thread: Homemade brush

Hi Everyone,

Not that, I'm going to try but more curious. Has anyone tried to make their own badger brush? They have them for sale all over ebay. Heres an example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...arch%26fvi%3D1


Its currently like at 31 bucks. So, in theory, wouldn't a complete hyde/fur whatever you call it make a whole lotta brushes?


Have a great day and God bless.

-kelly

That'd be Matt AKA shavethebadger and he's got his username cut out for himself there.

X

I don't have any experience making brushes, but, I have a feeling trimming and 'knotting' the hairs will require quite some dexterity, and probably some special tools.

For those who do aspire to create their own brushes, I think the pre-knotted hair from blankity-blanks would probably be a better (and much easier) idea. The link has already been posted somewhere on the forums, but I see no harm in posting it again.

I think that for the higher grades you can only use a few hairs from each pelt. That's why they are so expensive. Maybee you can get enough for a lower grade brush, i don't know.
It's probably not that easy since brush making is a profession in it's own. But wouldn't it be great to shave with a brush that is made from scratch by yourself.

Mats

That little girl doesn't looked too thrilled to be holding the badger pelt.

http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/

I think it might be fun to experiment with some basic cheap brush but making a badger hair brush is probably a big project requiring specialiized knowledge and skills as well as equipment. I'd hate to ruin some expensive badger hairs trying to learn.

You can practice with boar hair until you learn the basics and then do badger.

I don't know about making brushes but I could tie a lifetime supply of trout flies with that pelt.
Jack

Originally Posted by ToxIk

I don't have any experience making brushes, but, I have a feeling trimming and 'knotting' the hairs will require quite some dexterity, and probably some special tools.

For those who do aspire to create their own brushes, I think the pre-knotted hair from blankity-blanks would probably be a better (and much easier) idea. The link has already been posted somewhere on the forums, but I see no harm in posting it again.

I'm going to be doing JUST that. I can't spend $100+ on a brush. I just don't have the moolah. But I CAN however spend $15 on a stone and $30 on a badger knot. So that's just what I'm doing.

Originally Posted by maclean3

I don't know about making brushes but I could tie a lifetime supply of trout flies with that pelt.
Jack

That's exactly what I would use the pelt for. Not much going on here, since the seasons closed, but I'm looking forward to the last saturday in April, opening day for trout. I'm looking for a second chance on the monster that spit my fly on closing day!

For brush knots, an 18mm knot, generally considered small, is about 2.25" tall including the knot. The bristle looks about 2" or so long compared to that guys fingers. I tried for months to souce badger pelts with the type of bristle that was needed. At worst, the hair was too short or too "downy" like rabbit fur. At best, I was told a typical pelt would contain about 500-1000 guard hairs, the longer hairs that are used for brushes. Since a small knot could have several thousand hairs, the idea was nixed.

Obviously the temperature and climate differences between N. America and China could make for some different pelts, along the the specific genetics of the animals in question.