A.E. Simpson 1919

blzrfn · 02-08-2016, 12:04 PM

A few years ago I spent as much of my limited spare time as I could out in the garage restoring shaving brushes. I find it rather calming even though I know one small slip of the drill or Dremmel can completely ruin the project, making the prep time up to that point a complete waste. Lately I haven't made it a priority to get back out there, not due to a lack of project material, but probably just because I already have a lot of brushes in my collection and sometimes just reorganizing the brush cabinet seems more relaxing than starting a new project. This past week I found myself sick with a cold for the first time in several years. After a few hours of watching very boring television programming I decided to find something more productive to do. Walking past my Gillette razor blade display case, which is practically full of old British brushes waiting for restoration, a particular brush caught my eye. This Simpson L9 is very similar if not identical to the 59 model. The original knot was at one time magical, having a similar coloration to some of my favorite old timers.

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Unfortunately, like many brushes of this age, it suffered from Male Pattern Baldness!

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Now before deciding to restore this brush, or even put it on display with the other brushes awaiting restoration, I did of course clean it thoroughly and took it for a test drive. The sparse condition was further worsened by some adhesive failure causing several hairs to fall out with each lather. The previous owner of this brush was a very lucky man (or woman) and I'm sure loved the use of it for several years, even probably beyond its prime condition well into this deranged condition. Knowing what a special knot this once contained I decided I needed to try and honor the heritage by installing something nice in it's place. At first a crazy thought occurred involving the Dremmel, a hammer and my 2-band Polo 8 Super 2-band, and while that may one day take place I knew I shouldn't make such a rash decision while medicated. I then thought about a similar situation with my excellent Chubby 1 Super 3-band, but again I talked myself down as this was in fact my first restoration in a while and I should keep it simple. So I opened up my drawer of knots, expecting to choose from an Ace, Virginia Sheng, or some other cheap but respectable knot. Then to my surprise I noticed a knot that I had forgotten I had. It was a 24mm TGN Super 2-Band. These were available for a short time and was the only knot that I have ever owned from TGN that I enjoyed more than the old extra-dense Finest 2-band gel tip. In fact this knot shares so many characteristics with the old Simpson 2-band hair that it would be a perfect match. Now that I had all the pieces, OK, both pieces of my puzzle solved I went to work. Some drilling, sanding, grinding, buffing and a little hot gluing resulted in this:

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