Thread: My coticules and thuringians collection

Hi there,

it's been a while since my latest acquisitions, but here are two more coticules that have found their way to me :

The first one comes with a little story: it had been part of a sharpening stone lot and on the sales picture the coticule lay beside a nice translucent Arkansas and I thought "Damn, that must be a huge coticule" . Here are the two:



Well, once they arrived I found that the Arkansas was tiny and the coticule not that BIG as hoped :



Okay, it's 12 x 4,4 x 3,1 cm and weighs 460 g, so it's not too bad.

Here are some more pictures, on the last one you can see that sometime in the past it must have been longer and that one part broke off (a shame, really):





Cheers
Jörg

And here's the next one, in standard French razor hone size, i.e. 17.5 x 4,2 cm:







I had to do quite some flattening, here's how it looked when I received it :



Cheers
Jörg

Originally Posted by jollo74

And here's the next one, in standard French razor hone size, i.e. 17.5 x 4,2 cm:

jörg, nice stones, thanks for sharing!

my best coticule is 175 x 42 mm. you call this the standard french size. so, was this a size typical for hones cut for the french market?

regards,
hans

Beautiful stones! It's a shame so much of the one needed to be lapped away to get it flat again. How long did it take to smooth that fellow out?

Originally Posted by brightred

jörg, nice stones, thanks for sharing!

my best coticule is 175 x 42 mm. you call this the standard french size. so, was this a size typical for hones cut for the french market?

regards,
hans

Hi Hans, yes, from my experience that's a very common coticule razor hone size in France . I currently own 3 of such coticules, all of them bought in France, and, if I remember correctly, I had at least two more at some time in the past. However, I've never come across a coticule of this size "in the wild" here in Germany.

Cheers
Jörg

First of all, thanks for the nice comments and "likes" !

Originally Posted by Marshal

Beautiful stones! It's a shame so much of the one needed to be lapped away to get it flat again. How long did it take to smooth that fellow out?

True, it's a shame, but at least from its state I can deduce that someone loved and used this stone a lot ! The lapping didn't take too long, maybe 30 mins altogether. Coticules usually aren't that hard (unlike Arkies, as you know very well ) and I used a steel lapping plate with grit 50 SiC powder, then 150 grit SiC powder, followed by coarse DMT and 600 Atoma.

I don't really worry or mind that the coticule-layer is rather thin on one side as it's a natural combination stone: I don't have to worry of it coming loose. And I like using the BBB side on my smaller kitchen knives (it's much harder than the coticule side and you can apply some pressure for such knives, not for razors obviously).

Cheers
Jörg

Very nice coticules, congratulations! I like those old coticules a lot (yes, every coticule ist "old", about 400 million years old, but you know what I mean&#128513. Did you already figured out, fromm witch vein they coming from?

Originally Posted by eddymerckx

Very nice coticules, congratulations! I like those old coticules a lot (yes, every coticule ist "old", about 400 million years old, but you know what I mean&#128513. Did you already figured out, fromm witch vein they coming from?

Thanks ! I've been told that the allocation of specific veins is not really possible for vintage coticules and that the names now commonly used only apply to newer specimen.

Cheers
Jörg

Though that little translucent Arky is small, It could become your favorite slurry stone. A similar one has certainly has become mine. Great for finish hones because it is harder than most hones and leaves no residue of its own grit nor grit from previous uses.
~Richard

Originally Posted by Geezer

Though that little translucent Arky is small, It could become your favorite slurry stone. A similar one has certainly has become mine. Great for finish hones because it is harder than most hones and leaves no residue of its own grit nor grit from previous uses.
~Richard

I like the way you think ! I will surely try this out.

Thanks
Jörg