Brush cleaning

Not for shaving, but close relative.

I bought an antique grooming set that has Ebony handle hair and clothes brush (how do i tell which is which? one is long and skinny, other shorter and fatter, bristles look basically the same)

Both seem to be in good shape, bristles aren't breaking/falling out, so i think it just needs a good cleaning. How would I go about doing this?

Kit looks similar to this, only arranged a bit different
http://s3.amazonaws.com/bonanzleimag...9/dsc09642.jpg

If the wood is particularly nice and you want to polish it up, use some high quality lemon oil from your local hardware store. You could even go a step further and polish it with some Renaissance wax after the the lemon oil dries, if you wish.

As for cleaning the bristles... Some hot water and shampoo works well for me with my shaving brushes. Try soaking the bristles right up to where they are going into the wood in some hot soapy water. "Lather, Rinse and Repeat, if desired" Let it air dry out for a few days.

I reckon the smaller brush is the "clothes" brush, but also could be a small hair brush. Larger one is certainly a hair brush.

Thanks for the suggestion... for some reason shampoo didn't even cross my mind!! Now i feel silly.

I'm thinking some shampoo and warm water and agitate with one of my old boar hair shaving brushes (just sit in a drawer since I got my silvertip!) to get down into the bristle might be just the thing.

I have some pledge orange power wood polish that I figured would do a decent job on the Ebony. The ebony is quite nice. What is renaissance wax?

Yah, that boar brush should work great for this purpose.

Renaissance wax is a blend of waxes that makes for a nice preservative for a lot of finished surfaces. Its quite expensive, but I like to use it for polishing pretty pieces of furniture and wood scales. Completely optional for your purposes, though. The lemon oil will do a fine enough job on the ebony.

Buy Renaissance Wax at Woodcraft.com

Thanks, I looked up the wax.. Might try that eventually, but need to conserve some $ right now.

Well the shampoo and Pledge with Orange worked great! Brushes are clean and shiny, and even used the hair brush this morning...
What exactly does one use a clothes brush for? Just getting cat hair, lint, etc off?

Excellent :) Glad you got it taken care of!

I have never used a clothes brush, but I imagine you can treat it as you said, "cat hair, lint, etc..."

Yep, now working on cleaning up and filling out the rest of the travel kit. It came with a little plastic thing to put a razor in, but I might substitute for a razor box of some sort (the plastic tube is missing its cap). Also supposed to have some places for cologne etc... will be a fun project!