Thread: Bevelsetting on a Coticule.

I have been using slurry on a Coticule for bevel correction work, for several months now. Not all Coticules lend themselves equally great for that kind of work, and I have noticed that it puzzles some people that I can even get away with it at all. On SRP, Coticules are mainly known for their excellent finishing properties, but not for doing bevel correction. Although it is certain that the historic use of Coticules included the latter, and that finishing often was done on a pasted loom strop. One of the most reknowned Belgian razor stores in Antwerp still do it that way. They restore a good bevel on the Coticule and use Dovo red paste (3µ) to finish the edge. Not my prefered method, but it works well enough. But I was talking about bevel correction.
Last night's honing session included a razor send by a member here, that had a few indentations near the toe, probably caused by that razor hitting its scales at that point. The chips were visual with the naked eye. Let's have a look:

My regular course of action would be to breadknife till the damage is gone and rebuild the missing part of the bevel starting on a DMT 600, before I complete the bevel on a Coticule.
But for the sake of wanting to write this post, I decided not to breadknife and correct the problem on nothing but a Coticule.
I deliberately didn't grab my fastest Coticule, to emphasize that I NOT use a one in a million Coticule. These kind of Coticules are available to anyone that's prepared to do some hunting. The size of the one I used last night is 40X150mm (about 1 3/4" X 6").
I shot some pictures during the process.

The first picture shows clean, milk-like slurry.
The second was shot after precisely 10 laps. Notice the slight grayish discoloration.
The third picture was shot after about 5 minutes of honing.
The final picture was taken after 20 minutes, with the bevel entirely set again. 10 minutes later this razor was fully honed.
I've also uploaded a short AVI-file, that I recorded with my little photocamera. The link is only active for 7 days.
YouSendIt - Send large files - transfer delivery - FTP Replacement
[Edit: no need to download it any longer. Huntmol was so kind to put it on Youtube. Scroll down to watch. Thanks, Huntmol.]
Best regards,
Bart.

Thanks for that information Bart, and the visuals, that is just great

I have often gotten my slurry as dark as the third shot but never to the fourth. I think those photos will be very informative for those questioning the power of the coticule.

Bart, I appreciate your continued diligence in defending the honor of the coticule. Rock on!
(Lame double entrendre entirely intentional.)

Wow...that picture looks almost exactly like what I had on my razor from this thread. As I posted, I can attest to the effects of the Coticule on a problem like this. Very, Very effective, for me at least.

Holy cow! I didn't know it was possible to hone that fast, you hone faster than I can strop!
Great pictures and video, though. I recently found a coticule/bbw combo for a reasonable price, so hopefully I will be able to test this incredible theory soon.

Since the download link is going to expire in 7 days, I uploaded the clip to Youtube so that even if this thread is found months from now they will still be able to watch a honing master at work:
Bart of SRP honing on a Belgian Coticule