Thread: BBW as a one-hone?

All this talk of descanters. Now I'm craving whisky.

Originally Posted by SpikedLemon

Could a BBW be used as a "one-hone" solution to maintaining a blade? Or, more precisely, as a one/only hone for life (with slurry stone)?

Sure.

Originally Posted by SpikedLemon

Perhaps I've read too much into the Coticles.be article comparing results between BBW, Coticle and Coticle/BBW stones on straight razors but I want to put it out there. Yet many websites list it as a 4000-grit equivalent stone - as though they intentionally want to sway opinion away from it.
Link to study: http://coticule.be/heritage.html?fil.../BBW-study.pdf or http://www.coticule.be/the-cafeteria/topic/1452.html

Yes, I think you are reading a bit too much into it. Before all else you have to understand what the grit measurement means. Firstly, it is almost never applicable to a natural hone. Secondly, it has some correlation with removing steel but not too much because it completely ignores the hardness and shape of the abrasive media as well as the properties of the embedding matrix, which are more important than the grit measurement.
Misuse or misleading information from supposed experts normally would raise red flags.

Originally Posted by SpikedLemon

From all that I've read elsewhere: it's functionally similar composition as coticle through slower due to the lower garnet content. I would assume that make it easier for new users from causing damage but, based on the results, could still equal the final output of more expensive stones.

It isn't straightforward conclusion. Slower hone removes less steel in a single stroke, which means that mistakes in the stroke lead to less damage. However the increase of the number of strokes required to accomplish the job means that there is higher probability for strokes with mistakes which would need to be corrected.
Mathematically inexperienced honer is better off with as fast hone as possible. Ideally one that can accomplish the job in a single stroke (we're talking idealized case) - if you had such a hone then you can presumably correct an error with the next stroke and you only need one more error-free stroke to get the razor honed. Single error-free stroke is far more likely than a series of several such ones (remember you're talking novices here).
So, from this basic stochastic model the BBW is the worse choice for a novice, but it's also the significantly cheaper one, that's why you should give it a try (as far as I can tell your only considerations are BBW and coticule).

Originally Posted by SpikedLemon

Are there users that use a BBW to refresh their blades?

Probably, though I think it is not likely to find them around here because as you found out there are better options. So I'd assume one would pick an inferior honing option either because they don't know better (unlikely on SRP), or because they are ideologically biased towards it (e.g. they want to use a local hone, or a hone that looks in a particular way), or want to master a harder way of accomplishing something that can be done easier, or even financially biased (e.g. they get compensated to promote a particular hone).
But there are many people who use straight razors, so chances are that there is a number of them who use BBW to maintain them.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

All this talk of descanters. Now I'm craving whisky.

Are you sure you have not had a few already, Oz....?

I personally wouldnt use a BBW as a one-stop-shop, as Glen says there are other stones for the same money that will give you a much better edge. Personally if you want one stone only the Norton 4/8 is great and a long standing favourite on the forums.

And it has the benefit that because its well known, if you have a problem with using it there are people who can help.

The problem with naturals is they are so variable its hard for anyone to assist you with it unless they have a) the stone in front of them and b) enough experience of OTHER stones to be able to make a judgement call on what the issue might be.

Personally I only use naturals as finishers, I like the consistency and reliability of synthetics for the bulk of my honing and just use the naturals to give that final finish. Over the years I've tried a whole bunch of natural finishers (cotis, Charnley Forests, a variety of J-Nats, Thuringians, eschers and others) and even within one stone type there are a huge number of variaties. Its fun to try them all out, and to hunt out that elusive stone that gives you that wow factor, but if your aim is to have one stone to do it all with then I'd go for a synthetic and probably the Norton 4/8, or the Naniwa SS 3/8.. Though I'm not sure they sell those anymore, they may do but I cant really remember!

This is all just JMHO of course, you need to be happy with the stone you have and the edges you get. If you are happy, boom sorted hehe!

Good luck and keep us posted!

Originally Posted by Neil Miller

Are you sure you have not had a few already, Oz....?

No whisky in the house atm Neil but Gordons was on special yesterday so tee many martoonies are a possibility .

Originally Posted by onimaru55

No whisky in the house atm Neil but Gordons was on special yesterday so tee many martoonies are a possibility .

Just curious where do they make your Gordon's the bottle I bought saids Product of Canada.
It makes sense to make it in Canada for the Us market.

Ok well I have been reading this thread more and well kinda decided to just not respond till now. I have been doing experiments and seeing what differences are between stones and seeing what I can do to push the stone to its limits.

Well yesterday, I shaved with my test razor after finishing on a BBW. Well it was a decent shave. BBS in most places. I was in a rush so I didn't really pay to much attention to the trouble spots otherwise it would have been completely BBS. I honed my test razor maybe a month ago (i had to put this test on the back burner as I had a couple of other more important razor projects pop up), but I wrote down notes.

The particular stone I used was a vintage natural combo coti. Now as a disclaimer I didn't obviously have this thread in mind and so, no, I did not use the BBW only. I used a 1k diamond for the bevel set then slurry on a coti diluted to water. I did this because I wanted to take an edge that I knew would be shave ready and then take it to a BBW. I raised slurry on the BBW and again did the same dilution to water. Once I was on water I did 100 laps I did another 50 on oil. Not because thats what it took but because I wanted to make sure everything about the edge was from the BBW and I wanted to squeeze out every bit of smoothness from the stone. Remember I wasn't testing to see if I could shave off the stone I wanted to test what an edge felt like from a particular stone. I probably could have shaved off of it after 50 laps on water not counting the slurry laps. I don't count those I just go off of feel but if I had to guess it would be maybe a total of 200 laps (50 slurry and then 100 water and 50 oil oh and its a 3x2 stone). Any way it didn't take long but mind you this is not going from bevel set it is going from an edge that was done by a finer stone to the bbw. So I was going backward not forward, which undoubtedly would take longer.

Anyways on to the details of the shave. I stropped on linen (50) and leather (100), no pastes. I did my normal prep and used my normal soap that I use for testing. I shaved and on the WTG it was shaving fine but not what I prefer or can get out of my coti or arks or c12k. The only stone that did not beat the BBW that is in my possession and have tested was the Dragons Tongue. I didn't even want to finish shaving off of the Dragons Tongue.

Anyways the shave was very close and decently smooth (as in comfort) and all in all I would say it is acceptable but not to me especially when I could have done half of the work with just a coti. Oh and if money is the only thing preventing you from getting a good stone. The coti combo that I used to do this test was 5 bucks so I think you can afford that.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

No whisky in the house atm Neil but Gordons was on special yesterday so tee many martoonies are a possibility .

Ver nishe, Ossh:



Hic!
Neil

I got a 8x3 natural from a forum member who liked 'scary sharp' edges and didn't find the coticule/bbw provided such. I was early into my honing journey and found this coticule to my liking. Flash back to the 1980s when I bought 3 natural coticules from 3 individual barbers who'd been cutting hair, shaving customers, and honing razors for 50 years on average. All three told me the bbw side was only to support the fragile yellow side, and not for honing.

Old Rock and Deep Rock brand would sell their stones with a label glued onto the bbw. Bart posted that it was only in recent years that the bbw was found to be a viable razor hone, and posted photos of BBW used as paving stones, fences on the countryside, and even as stone facing on houses. One of a huge table top of bbw. Back to my 8x3, long before coticule.be existed, when Bart was still around SRP, I experimented with a sort of pyramid with my 8x3.

I would set the bevel on a 1k norton and then go to the bbw followed by the yellow. Seemed to work well. As I gained experience I began to realize that the bbw stage was not worth the effort. This is not to say that it didn't produce results, it did 'something'. But the energy expended was not worth the time when just staying on the coticule would be superior. BTW, I've got a slue of coticules, and have had quite a few more than the 6 I have now. I like them. I'd like to like the BBW, but IME it adds nothing to the arsenal.

If all a guy had was a BBW I guess he could get along. OTOH, he could do a lot better with a yellow coticule or many other alternatives. That is my hands on experience, obviously YMMV.