24 Hour Transformation - A Tale of My Omega 49

Ahhhh, the Omega 49 a brute of a boar. With a 27mm knot and 65mm loft set in a large colorful handle this brush is a whole lotta bang for $10. In use it did a fine job with my preferred face lathering, but truth be told it felt disconnected. The handle was so light and the loft on my particular brush was closer to 70mm. I feel this brush was made to lather somebody else at arm's distance rather than applying lather for my daily shave. I needed to do something to save this brush from the dust it was collecting as I bypassed it morning after morning, shave after shave.

A few months ago, on a whim, I purchased an olive wood shave brush handle from Jerusalem via eBay. My original thought was to grab a 26mm finest knot from TGN, but since then I have scored a Rudy Vey brush and restored a Simpson butterscotch brush both using TGN 2-band knots so I have that itch already scratched. The answer was clear as day the last time I used my current favorite bristle brush, the Semogue SOC. I needed to transplant the Omega Pro 49 knot into the olive wood handle. Here is an illustrated guide to the steps I took to create, what I hope will be, SOC's Italian cousin.


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Here we are at the beginning with the donor and recipient.


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Prying the knot out with my paint scraper was easy enough. Working the corner of the blade in between the black collar and the red body, then giving it a little wiggle in a few spots loosened it enough to be pulled out by hand.


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Removing the black collar from the knot was actually the part I was most nervous about. The collar is actually just a plastic tube surrounding the glue plug of the knot. The knot only goes down about 2/3 of the way into the collar so I cut from the bottom using wire cutters. Cutting in this fashion caused the plastic to crack and after cutting and prying around the circumference it wasn't long before I had the knot naked.


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With the handle and knot in hand I attempted to complete the surgery immediately. Unfortunately the glue base was wider than the diameter of the hair that I had previously measured to determine if this transplant would even be possible. Nothing a little sand paper and sanding block couldn't fix though. I also took the opportunity to flatten the bottom of the glue knot to make setting and adhering easier.


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Final results of sanding.


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Test fitting the knot I found that I may have to add a little spacer (or two) to get the knot at my target of 60mm.


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A couple of quarters in the handle brought me right on target.


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Having prepared everything to the best of my ability to this point has been pretty straightforward. Rather than just glue the knot in place though I decided to add a little more protection to the nice olive woodwork. I applied three coats of clear coat to the interior of the boar and then three coats of polyurethane to the exterior.


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I allowed the finishes to cure overnight and most of the day Saturday.


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The knot has been set, with two quarters used as spacers, using clear RTV silicone adhesive. I used a small bb sized dollop in the case that I am not satisfied with the performance of the brush. Holding it in hand and admiring my own handiwork leaves me wanting for my first lather using my Omega 50c!

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I will be sure to take better pictures of the brush from more angles as soon as the silicone has set and it passes its first test lather.