Brush Find (brushes)

[Site Man]

OLD FORUM POSTS

Posted by Jimmy Perkins on January 13, 2004

As far as old lettering brushes go...what is meant by kazan?

Thanks

Harry Oreska

Kazan is brown squirrel hair. Softer than gray from camels or gray squirrels hair. Browns are good for back up enamels on gold leaf.They are on quills and pinstriping brushes... scharff, mac, grumbacher,etc.

Robare M. Novou

According to an old QH&F catalog of 1992...

"Kazan or brown squirrel hair is generally from the kazan regions of Russia. The brown hair is softer than the grey or camel hair and is used in the making of quills for window work, sword stripers, flats and gilders tips. The softer hair will not leave brush strokes on the finished product."

As a side note....Have you seen in old lettering books, how a brush is referred to as a "pencil"?

Camel hair is the hair from a variety of Russian Squirrels, and not the hair of a desert camel...which some old books state.

RMN

Jimmy

Ahh, Russian squirrel hair.

I remember around 1985, while working for the late Sam Stone(Sign Writer), that there was shortage of Russian Squirrel. Did not know they were called Kazan. Sam, well his interest at that time seemed focused on stroking some other kind of hair!

As far as knowing brushes were called pencils...
no not really but it certainly makes sense. I heard one particular book store owner refer to lettering brushes as "chisels" though.

Thanks for the feed back

Raymond Chapman

I think the word "camel" refers to a blend of various type hairs.

[curt stenz]

As for Jimmy's reply above: of the reason for a lack of lettering quills around 1985:

I believe that the late sign supply distributor, Cecil Sanders informed me that the Russian nuclear disaster at Chernobyl killed several generations of wild squirrls raised for their hair. This was in April of 1986.