Andrew,
Thank you for inviting me to participate in one of your unique AMA events. Let's make this fun.
To answer your question about WHY I started to make shaving brushes is a long answer, but I will try to keep it short. I started DE shaving back while I was still in the Navy. I think it was circa 2011. I kept seeing some wonderful hand turned shaving brushes on other forums. Some of them just made my eyes pop.
For several months I wanted to buy a custom made shaving brush, but with 5 kids, I just couldn't justify it. I preferred those over the larger manufacturers because of the price and the art it provided.
I told my bride that I thought I could perhaps make my own brush......LOL So, a few months later, I fell into the wood turning vortex and popped for the smallest lathe I could find. Long story short, it doesn't take very long before I realized I needed a lathe chuck, turning tools and many other items that quickly added up to over $1500. Most expensive shaving brush EVER and I didn't even like it and ended up giving it to a buddy in the Navy.
Then I convinced my wife that I think I might improve since I knew my drive and knew that I could if I set my mind to it based on my past experiences with wood working, stained glass and other crafty type things. She was pretty indifferent and yet supportive, so I up'd the anti and purchased several hundred dollars of more supplies with confidence that I might be able to pay off my supplies. I was turning my first brushes under my back yard Maple tree sitting on a tiny child sized picnic table with no weather shelter. I finally sold my first brush in June 2013 for a profit of $8 to a gentleman named Jeff R. I realized this was going to take a while to pay off my supplies and also felt it was a big mistake jumping into this.
Well, my first brushes were........not my favorite shapes. 3 months later, a few people took notice of my work as it began to improve a bit and I kept taking risks. The challenge that faced me was the Navy. Since we were scheduled to deploy for 9 months, we had many underway workups on my ship schedule from mid 2013 until deployment in February. I knew this would pause my hobby and I also knew I would miss it tremendously as it provided me peace and serenity during those times I need it......which is often.
I still hadn't paid off my lathe, much less my other tools. But, I just cautiously kept the faith and kept pushing myself hard to practice as much as possible while home with hopes that the guys and gals would like what I was making.
There is much more to this story, but I will save that for other questions.
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