Hi David,
The first bentley brush I converted lasted ages. The second wasn't as good. It appeared to me that the flocking at the bristle ends was knotting up and giving a poor cleaning result.
We had only used Vikan flocked brushes before that which worked fine but were too heavy.
The crunch came when I looked at a window I had cleaned that faces the seafront one winter's morning. After the window had dried, I saw cleaned lines down the window where the bristles had cleaned but left uncleaned lines next to them. I concluded from this that there was no splay on the bristles and it was only the tips of the bristles that were cleaning the glass.
I changed the brush and pole back to the original Vikan and Unger Teleplus pole did the whole job again without issue. I ordered a superlite flocked which Gardiners had just started to sell and never looked back.
Before the Gardiner brush arrived I took another new bentley and cut a couple of the inner rows of bristles a bit shorter to try to get the outer bristles to splay. The weather the following day was poor so I never when out, and as the Superlite arrived that day, fitted to my pole and went on to using it.
I still have the unused, untested cut bristle bentley brush somewhere. Now we have the extreme brush, I don't see the point of messing with making my own that didn't do a good job for me TBH.
Sometimes Smithie can be a bit course in his way of expressing himself
. English isn't his first language, but I understand what he means as I come from the same culture. South Africans aren't great preservers of the past - we tend to knock down and replace with new. You won't see much of the last 100 - 150 years still in existence.
Years ago we modified carbon fibre Thompson modular fishing poles and the superlight was the best brush for the conversion due to it's lightness. If my memory serves me we did a complete conversion for around £25.00 - £30.00.
Why don't we still do it? I guess as Smithie says - we have moved on to carbon fibre SLX's and Superlight brushes. Yes they cost more, but they also work well, allowing us to focus on other things.
We also proudly use Aquadaptors on the end of our poles. Yes they add weight and cost more that a cheap on/off tap, but they save us water and reduce the amount of messing around switching water off and on.