Sorting Badger Hair

Hello Gentlemen,

I want to include you all on a project that will take some time to finish and accomplish. For any of you interested in how someone in the brush industry may feel when assembling hair into a knot, this thread may be for you. I think this may be an opportunity to clear up some misconceptions of badger hair and the names or grading of certain hairs. In this thread, I would like to share pictures of individually hand picked and sorted badger loose badger hair. I plan to sort the hair into multiple divisions and sub-divisions.

After receiving a pack of loose badger hair, marked "2 band finest", I soon had to toss out some "common knowledge" I had learned over the last few years. I think some of you will be surprised by what you see once I am able to get pictures uploaded. The things I will be looking at the help sort the hair will be differences in taper of the tip, length of taper/tip, overall length of hair, length of middle band, thickness of shaft, etc.

Here are a few pictures of what I sorted months back and it has taken lots of time as one, it is very daunting to even do this with about 100 grams of hair, but it is so fine to grasp delicately and is very hard to view accurately with the naked eye as the hair is so thin, even for being supposedly finest or 2 band hair. In these pictures, it may be less than 40 individual hairs. It may not look all that great or even easy to decipher but even this amount requires quite a bit of paying attention.

Interesting. Please post more pictures.

It's not presorted in the bundle it's bought in?

I've seen pictures online. I think Ali Express. Looked to me that they were selling chunks rolled and taped in clear plastic that was open at each end. The minimum amount to order was something obscene and impractical for anyone making less than several dozen brushes. Nonetheless I presumed it was presorted.

I couldn't do it.

It does remind me of a family member who worked with GE lighting. Where incandescent lightbulbs were made. The little tungsten filaments were enormous compared to a strand of badger hair. This family member said before working on the quality control side there was a manual dexterity and eyesight test. This was in the 1960s. Mostly women did the inspection and appraisal of filaments before the bulbs were fitted with a base and everything. It's fascinating how much skill and patience is involved. They later automated that process, well before closing up because of market changes...

I bet sorting badger hair isn't something that can be done when you have a cold. One big sneeze and it's back to square one!

It's not presorted in the bundle it's bought in?

I've seen pictures online. I think Ali Express. Looked to me that they were selling chunks rolled and taped in clear plastic that was open at each end. The minimum amount to order was something obscene and impractical for anyone making less than several dozen brushes. Nonetheless I presumed it was presorted.

So what you describe is exactly what I received. It seems the easiest answer is to just stick what you receive in a shape and stick it in a handle. But in this thread, you'll see some examples of badger hair that has no middle band and is almost clear and colorless. So through the sorting, I hope I can get some uniformity of the type of hair I might want and to learn a bit more about the variety there is off the pelt.

Wow, what a project. Better you than I. But I'll follow with interest.

How's the sorting going Zac?

Here is a little bouquet or fan of badger hair you can see. I can't tell you how many hairs that might be but it will require a bit of rinsing and visual sorting. It has been rinsed and cleaned as the badger funk still exists with the natural hair itself. But visually I have noticed a bit of character or spikes in the tips when they have started to be soaked in water and rinsed.