Yaqi Sagrada Familia Project

The Yaqi R1730 Sagrada Familia is a great looking handle. I’ve always loved it. West Coast Shaving sells it for only $11! On Black Friday it was marked down to $8, so I snagged one with the intent to modify.

The 24mm stock synthetic knot is junk in my opinion. This brush use to come with a higher quality knot, but not any longer. So step 1 was to cut out the old knot. Cutting a knot apart with scissors is a mess! 10 million small hairs went everywhere on my shop bench. I thought about steaming the knot out, but have actually ruined a handle in the past with that method.

I then drilled the socket deeper to around 15mm and wider to a full 26mm. Next, I put the handle on my lathe and cut about 1/16” off the bottom with my parting tool to remove the big “Yari” lettering. Did a bit of sanding as well to give it a nice smooth finish.

For the new knot, I went with a Maggard 24mm mixed 70/30 badger/boar knot. I’ve never tried this knot before, but it sure sounds interesting. It’s also very dense for a 24mm knot.

I silicone glued the knot in with RTX and am looking forward to using it tomorrow. Pretty happy with how it looks:

Call me impressed!