Not long ago I won a beautiful brush handle from Peter at Wolf Whiskers in a charity raffle. It came with a great synthetic knot, but it was lofted too short for me. I decided to remove it so I can put something else in.
I emailed Peter and he confirmed that all of his brushes are assembled with epoxy. I didn’t want to risk steaming the handle, but the Discord chat convinced me to try a 5 minute steam, which I did… 5 minutes isn’t long, and it didn’t work.
Not wanting to further risk a total failure (the handle is in 2 pieces, plus it has a coin in the bottom), I went back to plan A - mechanical destruction.
Picture 1: I used a box cutter with a fresh blade to slice most of the hair off
Picture 2: I used a combination of a small cutoff wheel and a grinder bit on a Dremel tool and started slowly chipping away at things.
Picture 3: This bit worked the absolute best. It’s small, so it took a while. It also created TONS of dust, so I had to do this outside.
Picture 4: This is pretty much the end result. It was very difficult to know when to stop. The end of the knot/epoxy and beginning of “handle” was never really obvious. In the end, the hole was 15.5mm deep, and 26.5mm wide.
I did mess it up in a few spots. The keyless chuck on the dremel has some knurling which made contact with the ferule a few times, despite me trying to be careful. I was able to buff them a little bit and they’re only noticeable if you’re looking closely at it.
I still haven’t decided which knot to put in it, but it’s a beautiful handle!
Very cool!
I love the handle, makes sense that you’d want to do a transplant.
Nice work!
I’ve done the same to two Rubberset 400s and a Moar Boar with a bad knot. I used approximately the same process as you for the Rubbersets, and also marred the ferrule, but upgraded my setup for the Moar Boar and I have worked out two recommendations for anyone trying to do this (or you if you do this again)
- Use a vise or something to position the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner next to the handle. It catches the dust, and lets you see mutch better what you’re doing (and clean-up is easier, too, but doing it outside is still smart). Seeing better makes it easier not to hit the ferrule and gives more confidence while milling.
- If you wrap the handle (especially the ferrule) in thick layers of cardboard and masking tape, you can hold the handle in a vise (still be careful not to crush it), and you won’t mar the ferrule if you accidentally touch it with the mill bit.
Pictures of my process are here
Next up for me is going to be extracting the shitknot of my Mühle Purist.
I did consider the vacuum and vice setup (I have both handy in the shed), but the vacuum maxes out my solar-battery-inverter setup.
I must not have been very alert yesterday because now it’s obvious that I could have used an extension cord from the house. Doh!
