[Bretherman]

I just bought the Boundless brand carbon fiber stylus brush, and out of curiosity, I put it under the microscope.

To my surprise, the bristles were very large compared to my cheap generic carbon fiber brush -- of which the bristle size is comparable to that tiny little brush by the stylus on my Shure Type IV cart.

Does anyone know if the carbon bristles are larger for a reason?

Or does it not even really matter in this case?

Comparing the Boundless stylus brush to my generic carbon fiber brush:



Bristles next to each other.
Boundless stylus brush on top, generic carbon fiber brush on bottom:



The generic brush bristles still seem almost impossibly thin even this close up.

Next to the little brush on the Shure cart:



I find it interesting that there seems to be a tiny tuft of the very fine bristles on the edge of the Boundless brush in that last picture.

A little closeup of the last picture:




(I'm unsure if there is a way to upload full-size images, as I'm sizing these down for gallery limitations).

[Letitroll98]

Please continue to downsize pics, uploading full size screws up the page for everyone reading on phones and tablets.

My guess is there's not a lot of science, testing, research or anything of the kind going on in these products, some factory in China uses whatever carbon fiber is cheapest and easiest to manufacture.  I have a long discontinued product for record cleaning called the Parastat that did use science in is design, which I've supplanted with a vacuum cleaning machine, but I still have it.  I must have half a dozen needle brushes, but the old stiff bristle Dishwasher works the best.  By eyeball they look like very fine bristles, maybe I'll stick a loop on it and see.