Wet Shaving Soap Bowl Scuttle

In working with spalted wood there are times we get voids.  Voids are usually places where the wood has broken down to eat into the wood. Many time it is a branch which the fungus and bacteria follow into the tree.

One of the challenges we face is how to approach the problem.  Bowls with holes make you no friends.

We decided to try filling the hole with a combination of clear epoxy and mother of pearl flakes. 

Here is the custom bowl we did for a customer in Maple with mother of pearl.

                                        

 

Here you can see the mother of pearl which has filled in to match the top and the bottom.  First we turn the bowl and them add the filler after the shape is finished and before the finishing coats go on.

 



 

Here it is from a little bit of a different angle.

Here is what the mother of pearl fill looks like inside the bowl.  

 

 

 

Our customer liked the Lilac Wood handle so he had some choices.  The lilac handles are on the left,  the two on the are maple.  They are dry fit (not anchored into the top yet).

 

Here's the maple handle on the top.



      Here is a lilac handle on the top.

 

 

This is the bowl after the handle is secured and the rest finished with the marine quality varnish.  Ahh the varnish...it is my love/hate relationship.  It is simply the best.  It is imported from Holland and is used on luxury yachts and boats.  It however, takes its time to dry and sometimes in cool weather it takes a couple of days.  But it can also move from a liquid to a gel form overnight for no reason. 

Here is a close up of the customers name in ruins.  It is a straight one-to-one translation in the major futhark. 

 

Here is the finished bowl with engraving.



 

 

 

 

 



Brush of a Lifetime Tall men and Big hands need a big brush

To show the large handle better here is a mahogany in comparison to the usual size. The smaller brush knot size is 22mm x 65mm the larger one is 30mmx 75mm.

Reclaimed Beams and Custom Wet Shaving Brushes

With another custom brush, we started with a Douglas Fir request. Harder to find than I thought it would. The older growth wood in the Pacific Northwest, can be found in reclaimed barns but most of those dealers have a zillion board feet. Our sizes are too small for their operations. We were lucky to find a reclaiming company in Quakertown, PA that has reclaimed pine beams.



 We got one that will not only provide these pieces, but will go into a limited addition set of brushes that we will be making which will be numbered.

We are very keen to find out what is on the inside. Here are the pictures of the pine beam. by counting the rings, we came up with an approximate start date for the tree about 1622. Too cool. We are also getting an old growth mahogany piece that was a banister. It was rescued from a house demolition.  Those will also be numbered brushes.

Custom Shaving Brushes and Flame Box Elder

Another custom Badger Brush that went to live in Singapore. We have had a piece of flame box elder for close to two years. The color of the wood is just amazing. It's a lot of work to track down interesting pieces of wood. First I have to scour the usual sites, ebay, nc woods, and our neighborhood. Actually, some of our best apple wood that has come from pruning our apple trees. One of the best parts is that the handle and the bowl are scaled up to his hand.

Family Insignia on custom wet shaving brush

We have enjoyed working with another customer. Having created an insignia or a family crest, we had some work to with Corel to get it on the Mahogany brush handle. It was really great that the importing the file into Corel went so well.

Exciting new Developments

Having been away working hard there a few projects I would like to share. We have been doing a lot of custom work for people. This brush is in Latin on a mahogany handle. Wonderful to work with the folks of Badger and Blade and the Shavenook bulletin boards.

Voyage to Darkness Continues

Well, onwards and upwards. The ebonized bowl is coming along slowly but surely. Now the outside has several coats of ebony the inside is starting to come along. As you can see, there are still areas that need covering. We have had humid and rainy days which greatly increases the drying time. So, we have to wait longer for every new layer. Traditionally lacquering is referred to "Japanese Lacquer" which comes from many many (possibly hundreds) of layers of lacquer from the lacquer tree. This website shows how the Asian process is done: http://www.urushi-kobo.com/process.html. As we go along, our ebonizing liquid is made from a stain and pigments. There is some minor finish layers included in the commercial stain we are using. Once the color is clear and black, we will be adding the proper finish layers of clear shellac and polyacrylic. This combination has proven to be optimal under the additional pressures of the shave bowl which is often wet. In general, finishes are not made to withstand being in water. We have also finished some really beautiful Shave Brushes in wenge, purpleheart and mahogany.