Some of you may recall that recently I was lucky enough to purchase a 24mm Manchurian Finest Fan knot from Artesanía Romera and I was quite eager for it to find its home in a vintage butterscotch Rooney handle. However after a few weeks I decided that though I loved the knot, I didn't love the handle. Only thing to be done is to make myself an homage to one of my favorite brushes of all time. The Simpson M7, specifically the GYLE.

I've always wanted one but unfortunately my finances have never lent themselves to dropping that sort of money on a brush, no matter how nice. Since my dad and I have been working on brushes and having good results I thought that now was the time. I began with a beautiful piece of Gabon Ebony in the most solid black I could find. I wanted this thing to end up looking like a polished piano key. Here's the pictures of the nearly finished product. Still need to epoxy the knot in place. The grain of the wood was really hard to photograph partially because its nearly completely black, and partially because of the gloss finish. You can see some of the grain in the reflections that look like dots, but the handle itself is as smooth as glass :-) Specs: 24mm Manchurian Fan, 60mm handle, 50mm loft for a total of 110mm height. 87g weight.