“Learn to Gel a Badger Knot” from Neil at HCS

Congratulations, Alex and the knot looks wonderful.

Thank you!

ANG69 I enjoyed your update. I can understand the feeling of a almost lost grail brush. Maybe that’s because I have had my fair share of grail like or stellar Morris and Forndran brushes. So many awesome feeling knots and ergonomic handles. I had a thing for Lee’s standard faux ivory resin for many of the ones I had. I think the style of the knot pictured is pretty cool. I would be curious if you know how wide the knots shape blooms too if you have calipers by chance. I think for as many posts that I have made raising preference of 3 band over 2 band hair, I don’t mention enough how versatile I think it can be. There are a lot of different styles of 2 band knots (shapes) that I think work well but I must say that maybe I do like a bit of a bigger 2 band knot like a 28mm or 30mm where as I like a smaller knot for 3 band.

Anyways, don’t mean to ramble but I should have some time this week to video bleaching a knot. I have a new temporary setup for shooting videos so stay posted.

ANG69 I enjoyed your update. I can understand the feeling of a almost lost grail brush. Maybe that’s because I have had my fair share of grail like or stellar Morris and Forndran brushes. So many awesome feeling knots and ergonomic handles. I had a thing for Lee’s standard faux ivory resin for many of the ones I had. I think the style of the knot pictured is pretty cool. I would be curious if you know how wide the knots shape blooms too if you have calipers by chance. I think for as many posts that I have made raising preference of 3 band over 2 band hair, I don’t mention enough how versatile I think it can be. There are a lot of different styles of 2 band knots (shapes) that I think work well but I must say that maybe I do like a bit of a bigger 2 band knot like a 28mm or 30mm where as I like a smaller knot for 3 band.

Anyways, don’t mean to ramble but I should have some time this week to video bleaching a knot. I have a new temporary setup for shooting videos so stay posted.

Thank you for the kind words! I just checked the knot's bloom in dry and wet conditions
Diameter of the knot at the handle - 29mm

• Dry "canopy" widest  - 71m
  
• Wet (fully soaked, wrung off, and towel-dried) - 78mm
  

A question for guys who are familiar and tried this method -
Does regular best grade hair work with this? Have a Duke 3 Simpsons best sitting in garage - would that work well with this method?

Hello inspectoring  Below is a brush I bleached and I considered it closest to a Best grade badger from Simpson. This knot is packed with a lot of hair and backbone so I bleached it so the tips with be closer to no scritch and have more of a gel like feel. The tips as you can see have tapered tips but have begun to curl and hook over. This one was bleached for around 8min and it did the job. All the other times I bleached a knot I was doing a more mild and shorter treatment to avoid gel tipping them. This knot feels much better but still too much backbone for me. That unfortunately can be addressed through the chemical treatments.

Helpful thread.

Here is the latest re-knotted and “gelled” brush -Simpsons M6

And one more project - Elite razor’s azurite handle with a gelled Oumo knot

ANG69 Any details on what you did or used on these two brushes above?

I have to go get the replacement for the violite bleach powder and get the cream. I think I am going to do a couple minor bleachings on a couple of my brushes but just very minor. I really enjoy being able to get some of my brush knots just a hair softer without having to gel the knots. I’m really happy that Neil shared this technique with the community.