Thread: Vintage Coticule?

Amen to that. My first coticule gave me a very dissapointing experience, to the point where I almost gave up on coticules completely.
But the low dollar persuaded me to buy a big one (I like 'em big from howard, specifically for the purpose of razor honing. And I have been very happy with it.

My older coticule is really unsuitable as a finishing stone, but it now has a place on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. Everytime I use a chefs knife or fruit knife, I give it 10 laps on the yellow and then a couple on the blue. And my kitchen knives are scary sharp since. It is a quick, easy and nice way to maintain them.

So I am pretty sure that all coticules are ok, but just not for the same purpose.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Amen to that. My first coticule gave me a very dissapointing experience, to the point where I almost gave up on coticules completely.
But the low dollar persuaded me to buy a big one (I like 'em big from howard, specifically for the purpose of razor honing. And I have been very happy with it.

My older coticule is really unsuitable as a finishing stone, but it now has a place on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. Everytime I use a chefs knife or fruit knife, I give it 10 laps on the yellow and then a couple on the blue. And my kitchen knives are scary sharp since. It is a quick, easy and nice way to maintain them.

So I am pretty sure that all coticules are ok, but just not for the same purpose.

I actually had the same experience with the one "vintage" natural combo coticule I have on hand. It cuts pretty fast and rough (especially compared to the Spyderco UF), and I have to hone under running water to "polish" with it or it will wreck a final edge.

That being said, once I got the hang of it, I grew to really like that stone.

I am getting another one from ArdennesCoticule pretty soon, so it will be fun to compare the 2 in a honing head to head.

I also got one from Howard, an 8x3, soft as butter, very nice stone.

I think there's one other reason for this vintage-coticules-are-better theme. There was a particular mine that was highly revered that closed somewhere around the end of the nineteenth century. The mine had a French name I can't remember, but coticules from this vein were called "old rock" or "deep rock." Some of the old geological textbooks from the 1920s or thereabouts say in essence 'they don't make 'em like they used to.' I think some of the old barber's textbooks from that period also say something of the sort, and maybe even Arthur Boon's (?) I seem to recall...

This meme seems to have filtered into modern discussion of coticules, but the comparison is dated, having to do with hones from the early part of the 20th century vs. hones from the 19th. There are new veins since. In fact, it seems likely that many of what we call "vintage coticules" are from the period that wasn't supposed to be so good.

I think we have to bear in mind that 50 years and longer ago, there were no Nortons, no DMT's, no Shaptons. The bulk of synthetic hones people had access to were much too coarse to be used on razors. Coticules were used as work horses. Loom strops, such as the model that Dovo sells till this day forward, were commonly used with a red paste, to refine the edge further after it came off the coticule. This traditional method of honing is still taught today on various straight razor revival courses in Belgium (and I guess also in other countries).
This use of the coticule is completely different than the on SRP mostly endorsed use of it as a finishing hone, after sharpening on hones that didn't exsist in the "vintage" days.

For the traditional use as a sharpening hone that fits in the realm of the Norton 4K and even of the DMT1200, it is imperative that the coticule in question has good slurry formation abilities. But even that doesn't tell everything. I have used coticules that raised slurry very easily, but still couldn't move hard razor's steel fast enough to be used for serious sharpening of a blunt edge. Those exact same coticules worked just fine on the softer steel of kitchen knifes. The rate at which the slurry darkens while honing is good indication for assessing the rate at which it removes steel.

On the other end of honing, for polishing an already keen edge, the coticule does not need to move steel fast. Slurry is to be avoided so the very softest stones are to be ruled out. After that, we're left with the question how much difference there is between the medium and hard stones and also if the hardness by itself tells the whole story. I don't know.
I have visited different former mining sites, climbed a few fences and took calculated health risks to pick up rocks of raw coticule. Having them cut to strips costed me more than purchasing a few hones at Ardennes (which I have also done, cheers Rob). It took me and my pal Kris countless hours to lap a few of the most promising samples completely flat. Among them are a few glass-hard specimen. At first, I thought they were not doing anything. Although under 40X magnification the steel shows a beautiful polished surface, the edges were always unsatisfactory.
It was not before I bought an outstanding high-grit synthetic hone (the Naniwa Chosera 10K), that I discovered the virtues of those hard coticules. They turn a fantastic edge into a freekingly fantastic edge. But, to reiterate, if you 'd expect those particular samples to improove the given keenness of an edge, then you're going to be dissapointed.

Many coticules offer a good comprise between being avid cutters with slurry and smooth polishers with water. In most cases, I am strongly convinced that the final results are much more limited by the honers skills and not so much by the hones capabilities. In the extremes, some coticules might polish a bit finer and others might cut more rapidly, but it's still the call of the honer how to use it and where to place it in a progression.

Rob, I would very much like to assess coticules for you. It would allow me to gather more empirical data about these historical hones to which I have develloped such a big fondness, and it could help you to finetune your differentiaton system.

Best regards,
Bart.

Originally Posted by Bart

I think we have to bear in mind that 50 years and longer ago, there were no Nortons, no DMT's, no Shaptons. The bulk of synthetic hones people had access to were much too coarse to be used on razors. Coticules were used as work horses. Loom strops, such as the model that Dovo sells till this day forward, were commonly used with a red paste, to refine the edge further after it came off the coticule. This traditional method of honing is still taught today on various straight razor revival courses in Belgium (and I guess also in other countries).
This use of the coticule is completely different than the on SRP mostly endorsed use of it as a finishing hone, after sharpening on hones that didn't exsist in the "vintage" days.

For the traditional use as a sharpening hone that fits in the realm of the Norton 4K and even of the DMT1200, it is imperative that the coticule in question has good slurry formation abilities. But even that doesn't tell everything. I have used coticules that raised slurry very easily, but still couldn't move hard razor's steel fast enough to be used for serious sharpening of a blunt edge. Those exact same coticules worked just fine on the softer steel of kitchen knifes. The rate at which the slurry darkens while honing is good indication for assessing the rate at which it removes steel.

On the other end of honing, for polishing an already keen edge, the coticule does not need to move steel fast. Slurry is to be avoided so the very softest stones are to be ruled out. After that, we're left with the question how much difference there is between the medium and hard stones and also if the hardness by itself tells the whole story. I don't know.
I have visited different former mining sites, climbed a few fences and took calculated health risks to pick up rocks of raw coticule. Having them cut to strips costed me more than purchasing a few hones at Ardennes (which I have also done, cheers Rob). It took me and my pal Kris countless hours to lap a few of the most promising samples completely flat. Among them are a few glass-hard specimen. At first, I thought they were not doing anything. Although under 40X magnification the steel shows a beautiful polished surface, the edges were always unsatisfactory.
It was not before I bought an outstanding high-grit synthetic hone (the Naniwa Chosera 10K), that I discovered the virtues of those hard coticules. They turn a fantastic edge into a freekingly fantastic edge. But, to reiterate, if you 'd expect those particular samples to improove the given keenness of an edge, then you're going to be dissapointed.

Many coticules offer a good comprise between being avid cutters with slurry and smooth polishers with water. In most cases, I am strongly convinced that the final results are much more limited by the honers skills and not so much by the hones capabilities. In the extremes, some coticules might polish a bit finer and others might cut more rapidly, but it's still the call of the honer how to use it and where to place it in a progression.

Rob, I would very much like to assess coticules for you. It would allow me to gather more empirical data about these historical hones to which I have develloped such a big fondness, and it could help you to finetune your differentiaton system.

Best regards,
Bart.

Let us know what your results are...

To Bart,
Actually, there were Nortons 50 years ago. I'm in the middle of reading a book about the Norton Company. They were a pottery in the 1860s and then started adding emery to the clay to make grinding stones and wheels. The 1880s were marked by them and others finally figuring out how to make grinding wheels that would perform predictably and not blow up when spun up by a motor. This was "high tech" back then! Their technological prowess continued to grow through the early 1900s and by that time they had hundreds of abrasive products for all kinds of uses. They started in Worcester, MA where there were also 3 straight razor manufacturers at the time.

The book is "Family Firm to Modern Multi-National, sub-titled "Norton Company, A New England Enterprise", copyright 1985 by Charles W. Cheape, a Harvard Business School professor. I have an extra copy if anybody wants it. $15.

Howard, Thank you so much for your opinion and your great Coticules....Rich

I think we are taking a simple issue and making it complex.

So you have this deposit in the ground of unknown size. So you start mining it. Maybe its a small vein 100 feet long and 10 feet wide. In a few days its gone forever or maybe it's 10 miles square and you can mine it for 100 years. As you go through the deposit there is some variation in the quality of your target mineral or rock but it's only as you come to the end of the deposit that the quality starts to really go downhill. This is an oversimplification but that's how it pretty much goes. Very often once the mine is played out you can go to the mine dumps and pick up some pretty good stuff in very small quantities if your willing to do the work. Heck, with some very valuable deposits they have gone back and reworked the dumps to extract low concentrations of ores that could not have been extracted many years ago.

The age of a deposit has nothing to do with the quality of the stuff you get its just a matter of the size of the deposit and how much has been removed and what is left. Its just that with many mines especially very small ones the best stuff is long gone and what remains is second rate at best but that doesn't have to be the case all the time and of course as you go from mine to mine there are differences in the quality of the product even when they are nearby.

Also consider that many of the very old mines were limited by techniques at the time where great quality still exists however they just couldn't get to it because maybe a vein would plunge too deep. Also, where these mines were family owned and really small scale it was not and still is not economically feasible to continue mining.

I'm not familiar with the coticule mines so I can't comment on the specifics that's best left to Howard and they guys from Belgium.

Bart, could you contact me through email?
Thanks