Thread: Coti vs Escher

Originally Posted by shooter74743

Same gentleman taught me & if someone hasn't had one of his edges they should & use it for a baseline.

Now, to the OP. You are comparing two very different stones. Escher/Thuri is just a finisher, that's it. If you had a fast coti and finished on thuri, you would have some dang fine edges. Some coti's can give a fine edge too, so I hear. I've been through about a dozen coti's and have yet to find one that will give me the edge I like. That's the key..."I like". I personally like a semi-crisp edge the is very close to the "wicked sharp" feel, just toned down to my taste. This edge requires a light touch when shaving. I've experienced good coti edges, but it's not "what I like". This is your key: What you like. If you are producing quality shaves off your stone, great! Just don't quit learning & experimenting as your edges will only get better.

Thanks. This is my point I have 4 vintage coticules. All produce a great edge. I would like to find out if I can improve that by following with a thuri and stroping on leather only. From what I know it sounds like that should be possible.

Originally Posted by rideon66

Thanks. This is my point I have 4 vintage coticules. All produce a great edge. I would like to find out if I can improve that by following with a thuri and stroping on leather only. From what I know it sounds like that should be possible.

IME it is possible. With all of these stones and razors it is a matter of trying them out. I've also had the experience of a coticule that didn't seem to deliver the goods at first. I put it away for a few months and came back to it and it worked great. I had to wait until a day when I was really into it and had the patience to keep at it. Not a fast stone, but an extremely fine one. Darn near as fine as any thuringan as it turned out.

Not to mention(As you probably already know!), if you are truly intrigued on Coticules, there is TONS of written word on them.
There is even a dedicated forum for them, I believe. My Coti is quite small. A wonderful, old-mined one with 'Fratelli' scratched into the side. It does seem to work great. It just takes forever, it seems. Someday, I may find a larger one with which to 'hone my skills', so to speak.
I suppose some of us love to hone/experiment. Some of us are in a rush for a shave!

Coticules like any natural stone will vary in hardness and grit. I find that the ideal coticule for one stone honing ( bevel setting to finishing) is one that is both soft (fast) and fine, my veinette for instance meets that criteria.

As an amateur musician, I can draw an analogy with woodwind instruments, the perfect instrument should allow for easy low register and high register playing. A thick bore will play the lower register very well at the expense of the high register and vice-versa. a proficient musicians will adjust his technique based on that.

A coticule that is too soft and not as fine will be great for bevel setting at the expense of finishing and vice-versa.

I have some coticules that are really hard and slow. They are great, but I use them as more as finishers.

In the end, you can get a great edge with all of them but will need to adjust your technique based on the stones properties, hence, learning the stone.

Originally Posted by Badgister

Coticules like any natural stone will vary in hardness and grit. I find that the ideal coticule for one stone honing ( bevel setting to finishing) is one that is both soft (fast) and fine, my veinette for instance meets that criteria.

As an amateur musician, I can draw an analogy with woodwind instruments, the perfect instrument should allow for easy low register and high register playing. A thick bore will play the lower register very well at the expense of the high register and vice-versa. a proficient musicians will adjust his technique based on that.

A coticule that is too soft and not as fine will be great for bevel setting at the expense of finishing and vice-versa.

I have some coticules that are really hard and slow. They are great, but I use them as more as finishers.

In the end, you can get a great edge with all of them but will need to adjust your technique based on the stones properties, hence, learning the stone.

I like your analogy; some coticules are more finicky than others. In other words: it takes more practice to coax a great edge out of them.

However, I never noticed any distinct causality between soft and fast, and hard and slow. I judge hardness in coticules by how readily they release slurry (I'm very sceptical about the fingernail scratching test). One determining factor (definitely not the only one, though) for the functionality of coticules and Belgian Blue Whetstones is the density of the garnet distribution. To me it seems logical that this has a much higher level of impact on the functionality than the hardness of the binder of the coticule.

I have a relatively hard old coticule which is quite slow on slurry and water. I also have a recently mined Les Latneuses combination coticule on which the "hybrid" side is quite hard. Yet, it is not slow by any means; not very fast either (slower than the cream coloured side), but rather what I would call medium speed on slurry and relatively slow on water.

I also have a relatively soft coticule which is roughly as as fast overall as the Les Latneuses "hybrid". As far as I have been able to detect there is no clear correlation between hardness and speed concerning coticules.

Regarding the initial post: I also have trouble descerning between a great coticule edge and a great Thüringer edge. For good measure, add a great Blue Belgian edge to that.

Yeah I have a really nice combo stone where the coti side is very hard and smooth and the BBW side is similar. I have not shaved direclty off the BBW side yet though. I am really liking this stone. So last night I was playing with a very nice Greaves razor on the really hard coti. The razor was already shave ready I just wanted to try it on this stone. I did 100 laps water only with 2 pieces of tape. Stropped 60 on linen 80 on leather. It got scary sharp. I even cut myself for the first time in forever just touched the cheek in the wrong way. I now have a 2" line on my cheek. Never done that before. I also won a boxed thuri online last night too(finally found one at a price less than my coticules). So we will see if the thuri can improve the edge from this coti when I get it. I will only strop on leather after the Thuri.

Question to the Thuri people. Frist if it is already sharp do I make a slurry or just water as they self slurry a bit to finish an edge? Next what would be a good estimate of laps on the thuri or just judge as I go? Finally do you strop on leather the same amount or since you do not use linen do you double it? Oh and I guess I would use tape as was used in the sharpening of the razor before? I am sure over time I will play with all this I just want to get a good idea of what to try the first time.

Sounds like you have a killer coticule there. Congrats on the thuri. I always make a thin slurry on my thuris that i do a quick dilution on. I then finish on thin/trace slurry.

but you should try both to see what you prefer. It works both ways. If I skip the linen on my strop then I'll double the number of laps on my leather strop.

Funny thing on my lighter softer thuri I felt an improvement on skipping the linen but my darker harder one benefits from the linen leather strop.

Here are my thuris I had a third one but gave it away.