A brush by Neocaligatio

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Location
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24mm best badger shaving brush with boxwood handle by Chris (neocaligatio)

I have very little experience of quality shaving brushes up till now, in fact I was using a Culmak Spartan exclusively until fairly recently when I moved up to a huge, floppy Omega 49 Pro. To use the currently popular car analogy, the latter is an unwieldy but comfortable Sierra estate; the former a Hillman Imp.

Obviously I was in need of a decent badger powered shaving brush, but what to go for? Prime contender was the Kent BK4, and I'm still confident that Santa will oblige, but then I stumbled through the door to The Shaving Room, saw Chris' brush making thread and decided that was the way to go. After a few good natured PMs we settled on a 24mm best badger knot, and Chris agreed to use a billet of boxwood which I duly sent off. At first I thought I wanted a Chubby type of handle, but the blank wasn't quite big enough, so I wound up leaving the design in Chris' hands: wise choice, and what I should have done in the first place. The result is the brush you see (Chris' photo).

As far as I'm concerned, the brush is a thing of beauty, and the elongated Persian jar shape works very well ergonomically too. The knot is soft enough for the brush to stand upright in a bowl of water for soaking purposes, and it started to bloom after the first use: it's considerably wider now after just three shaves. It's no great wonder that it outperforms my other brushes, but I was surprised at the way it produces a lot of lather very rapidly, to the point that I'm having to adapt my technique to avoid too much wastage. The bristles feel very soft when dry, but have a pleasant prickle to them when wet. All in all I'm delighted with the brush, and I can't think of any niggles at all. Chris provides an excellent service, and if he thought that I was a troublesome customer (I was), he didn't let it show. The price? Well, I'm not going to tell you that, but I will say that I feel almost guilty at how little he wound up charging. Anyone who's in the market for a custom brush really should not hesitate to put some business his way.

So what kind of car is this? Unique, made to order, British ... sounds like a Morgan to me.
 

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Re: A brush by Neocligatio

Thanks for the great review and feedback :mrgreen:

I'd love to see a few post-bloom pictures if you get the chance? It really was a pain to see that one leave my possession....



Here's a bigger picture:

3980854030_1101893bef_b.jpg



Chris
 
Re: A brush by Neocligatio

I should say!

At the wood-turning centre I visited the other day they had bags of box-wood offcuts and the chap at the counter pointed them out to me by saying - "every wood turner should have a go at turning box once in awhile to stay sane!"

Turns like butter, hard as nails when off the lathe - now if only it came in a variety of colours!
 
Re: A brush by Neocligatio

neocaligatio said:
I should say!

At the wood-turning centre I visited the other day they had bags of box-wood offcuts and the chap at the counter pointed them out to me by saying - "every wood turner should have a go at turning box once in awhile to stay sane!"

Turns like butter, hard as nails when off the lathe - now if only it came in a variety of colours!
Click to expand...

Booh. What's wrong with box yellow? ;-)

You could always go for stabilized box -- no need to varnish the brush handles, plus you can choose any colour you like...

I'd love to have a wood-turning centre like that nearby. I do have some reasonable wood suppliers though, but turning tools and supplies are mainly acquired by mail order from the UK or US. There is a professional woodturner, close to where I work, that I sometimes visit. He sells special things (chisels that are hard to come by, polishing supplies for deburring gouges, a very high quality danish-type oil).

Henk
 
Henk- I don't have anything against box! I'd happily never turn another wood ever again, but unless I persuade every person who orders a brush to use it, I'm forced to use far less pleasurable materials ;)

I'd only just noticed the spelling mistake - I'd blame me for having such a long-winded moniker if I were you!

Can we change names on here? Maybe I should just resort to Chris - that's what most people choose to call me ;)
 
So what IS 'neocaligatio' anyway?

Box is indeed on of the most beautifully turning woods. And I like the looks of it as well. Having said that, American hard maple turns almost as well, and is a lot cheaper. Maple is about the only species of wood from which I can peel really long shavings (like apple peel).

Henk
 
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