Attaching new hair ends (Fine tuning method)

If the hairs become worn and out of shape, reattach the ends. If the root of the hair is clean and in good condition, you may not need to saw it off at the root. Here's how to adjust the hair by peeling off a bit of the wood board at the root of the hair and shaving off only the worn part of the hair tip.

 

1) Make the hairy legs longer

Strip some of the wood at the base of the tree to lengthen the hair.
We will be cutting off the tips of the hairs, so please make the hairs a little longer by that amount.

 

2) Loosen and wash the roots.

Unravel the clumps of hairy legs that have come out.

 

3) Shaping the hair ends

Wet the ends of the hair with water, and use a well-sharpened cutting knife or similar tool to shave and shape the ends of the hair. It is easier to shape the hair as desired if the hair is soaked in water that it lies flat. Start shaving toward the tip of the hair.
If you move the blade only in one direction (the thin arrow), you will end up with a brush with an unbalanced thickness. The bristles at both ends of the brush tend to escape from the blade, so move the blade in the direction of the thick arrow to sharpen the bristles at the ends as well.

 

4) Trim the ends of the hair.

Cut the ends of the hair straight. You can use a kiridashi knife, or if you have one, you can use the blade of a canner to do this.
At this point, if you didn't shave the ends of the hair thinly enough in the previous step, the hair will stick out like a fox's ear at both ends! (see photo above). If the hair is shaved just right, it will not stick out as much (see photo below).

 

For the ears that stick out, shave them off by moving the blade toward the outside with the cutout knife as before.

Now it's balanced!

 

Let's look at the brush from directly above. Are both ends (the red circles) thick? If the overall thickness is consistent, you're good to go!
Wash it clean, and you're done!

 

You can check out the video of the process in ③ and ④ by clicking here.

 

 

This is just a basic shape. Depending on what you are painting, a shape with the hair ears showing or, conversely, with the hair ears shortened and the tips rounded may be more suitable. Try changing the shape and volume in various ways to find a shape that is easy for you to apply.