Thread: Coticules... ymmv indeed!

It's in the mail Nodak

In spite of what one may read, all coticules are not created equal, and it took me many examples to learn that fact. The first one I bought, was the best of the breed, although I didn't know it at the time. After many more purchases, trying to catch "lightning in a bottle," I have two La Veinnettes that are equal to each other, and superior to all the others.
But, I must say that there are examples of other veins that have a place here for specialty purposes. But, those two LV's do everything I need from a stone ...

Originally Posted by Druid

In spite of what one may read, all coticules are not created equal, and it took me many examples to learn that fact. The first one I bought, was the best of the breed, although I didn't know it at the time. After many more purchases, trying to catch "lightning in a bottle," I have two La Veinnettes that are equal to each other, and superior to all the others.
But, I must say that there are examples of other veins that have a place here for specialty purposes. But, those two LV's do everything I need from a stone ...

I've got a la veinette kosher 8x2 that is quite good but it took me some fooling with it to discover that. Still takes a lot of round trips to get "there." I have some vintage pieces that belonged to barbers and predate the current Ardennes quarry so no telling what pet name the quarries gave to the veins those came out of. Some are real good, as in fast/fine (for a coticule) and others I just haven't figured out yet. In general I always assume if I'm not getting "it" out of a coticule it is me, not the stone. I could be wrong though, I was wrong once before.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

In general I always assume if I'm not getting "it" out of a coticule it is me, not the stone. I could be wrong though, I was wrong once before.

I stuck with the one I had (Largely due to impoverishment, more than as a conscious choice) and it my results have gone from 'ok' to very good although it has taken work. [Insert diety here] alone knows whether my coticule came from the Ardennes quarry and if so what vein it is - I'm actually rather glad I stuck with it.

I told this before but I'll tell it again. I have a TI super gnome 5/8 that I had honed years ago when I first got it. Needed a touch up and I took the La Veinette and water only. Every 30 x strokes I made a pencil mark on a notepad and stropped and tried HHT. Took over 160 strokes to get to the point where I felt it was as good as I could get it. I got as good a shave out of that razor, sharp/smooth, as I have out of any I've ever shaved with, not matter what it was honed with, or who did the honing.

I normally shave with many different razors but I did a two week rotation between the TI and a Ralf Aust I had gotten from SRD, great razor, and both just kept on trucking for the entire two weeks. I could have shaved with the pair indefinitely but get bored with the same routine, so went back to a lot of variety.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I've got a la veinette kosher 8x2 that is quite good but it took me some fooling with it to discover that. Still takes a lot of round trips to get "there." I have some vintage pieces that belonged to barbers and predate the current Ardennes quarry so no telling what pet name the quarries gave to the veins those came out of. Some are real good, as in fast/fine (for a coticule) and others I just haven't figured out yet. In general I always assume if I'm not getting "it" out of a coticule it is me, not the stone. I could be wrong though, I was wrong once before.

I agree with you 100%, and that is the reason that the stones that did not work for me, never went down the road ... Although, there are a couple that are better suited to woodworking tools than shave implements.

But, one day curiosity will get the better of me, and I'll revisit all those stones. Only time will tell if that will answer any questions or not!

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

I told this before but I'll tell it again. I have a TI super gnome 5/8 that I had honed years ago when I first got it. Needed a touch up and I took the La Veinette and water only. Every 30 x strokes I made a pencil mark on a notepad and stropped and tried HHT. Took over 160 strokes to get to the point where I felt it was as good as I could get it. I got as good a shave out of that razor, sharp/smooth, as I have out of any I've ever shaved with, not matter what it was honed with, or who did the honing.

Again agree!

My prized LV's are quite aggressive on slurry, but painfully slow in the finishing mode, on plain water only. They require a lot of laps to get there. And, therein lay my initial problems ..... Just not giving enough strokes in the final stage.
But, like any stone, it takes lots of experiments to unlock the secrets hidden within ..

Yeah I think I'm not spending enough time on my finishers across the board. I picked a natural combo coticule yesterday for a dollar and I'm excited to try it out tonight!