SO does anyone hone on the BBW side of the coticule?
I'm trying to find some info to learn more about Belgian Blue but not getting anything detailed enough and not really seeing anyone on the site raving about it.
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SO does anyone hone on the BBW side of the coticule?
I'm trying to find some info to learn more about Belgian Blue but not getting anything detailed enough and not really seeing anyone on the site raving about it.
I've used it on a few razors, as a slurry, works well for some aspects as a frangible and I like it for small pocket knife blades, wish I had a big slab of BBW to play with.
I use it most of the time when I finish with the coticule,,, I use it after the 4K Norton,, skip the 8K ,,,then finish with the coticule.
Yeah the BBW ;-) sometimes they are quite good, sometimes they are not that good usable. So its made by nature and the quality depends on the composition of the stone.....
If youre lucky, you might find a stone backed with a piece of Lorraine Rouge layer, which is a very capable stone. More can be found here:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...wetzstein.html
Concerning plain BBW you can read some more here:
http://www.coticule.be/the-cafeteria/topic/1452.html
Also read Henks Grinding and Honing Part 4 on belgian whestones:
http://bosq.home.xs4all.nl/info%2020...whetstones.pdf
I love the BBW, the diversity in appearance is very interesting and highly appealing to my eyes.
I've got around 20 or so and they are mostly different looking, a couple ones are from the same vein, and most of mine are natural combo stones; very nice looking stones, I dig their appearance more than the coticules or anything else for that matter.
I also got one from ardennes coticule a while ago, it's a very big hone and has been a main workhorse and it took a permanent spot in my honing routine.
I use mine mostly on slurry to reach maximum keenness, after the coti with slurry and before the coti with just water.
Works very well, it's become part of my routine and gets me excellent results.
It's basically this method: http://www.coticule.be/progressive-honing-method.html
Hirlau, how do you like to use yours? Just water or with slurry?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hirlau
Thanks for pointing me to this Jasper !!Quote:
Originally Posted by TristanLudlow
Bbw is all over the place. Some can be good, others almost useless. Salm is a different animal altogether. Bbw hit rate seems higher on glued vintage combos than natural combos in general. I have a habit of testing the bbw first on any new coti I get. One thing I will say is that it is fantastic with knives
I think you may want to read this report here: "Operation True Blue". Well planned, well researched, and well documented. Unfortunately, the only such report available as far as I know.
I had three hones with BBW side (combos) and two BBWs, and never really found much favor in them. Mostly because novaculite seems to be superior if you want a slower hone (more keen, cheaper to locate, etc).
I talked to an oldtimer who gave me an unused old rock coticule in exchange for selling a whole bunch of his stuff on ebay, and he said "you can't use the labeled side for anything, it's no good" (that was the blue side).
I chalk the fact that you can use the blue to good effect if you have to up to the same thought pattern that we can use all kinds of things (owyhee jasper is the finest natural stone I've ever seen, but we don't use it for much - it can super finish a razor if you want it to), but that we're hobbying. The former professional users of the stones didn't have interest in that, and they probably came to their conclusions about what was worth their time over a couple of hundred years. New abrasives not withstanding, we'd probably do better to follow their advice than experiment.
But I experiment, too, and I think everyone will out of curiosity.
Yet he felt the need to paint every inch of a bbw with crox in his YouTube video of bbw honing to throw the edge over the top.. If those were their findings, so be it, but it is incongruous with many other peoples'.... I've tried dozens at this point, I'd say around 70% were varying degrees of usable within a given range. The ones I disqualified were just hysterically slow or had inclusion weirdness. Of all the pieces I've had of normal bbw, to shave off of directly, I've only come across one. The backing of a choice Belgian stamped natural combo. Very very dark, very tight grain, good cutting power. I have one other piece that is glued to the back of an extremely hard coti from France that comes close, but not quite.
Buying vintage glued combos is the way to go. Even if the coti is bottomed out, you have a good shot at the backing being salm.
Absolutely. Especially the deep rock variant. Kosher, too.Quote:
Originally Posted by kcb5150
Not.
I'm talking about if you want good bbw, not a coti in general...
As far as cotis go, new or old doesn't really have any quality impact, new can actually be better in the sense that you can specify what you are looking for vs taking a punt on something costly because it has a box or stamps. But if you want a nice slab of bbw, I maintain my opinion on the old stuff having a better chance for a more interesting specimen.
Attachment 221548Found a pic of the rock I was talking about. This is the best bit of bbw I have.
This is my next best bit, and weirdly, if you were just to judge it in person going by appearances, it wouldn't be promising. Attachment 221549
I too did my own BBW study, several years ago during my Coticule collecting period that was rampant then.
And I also conclude that, it depends on the stone, like all naturals. Some perform, some don’t. I really don’t use Coticules much anymore, for me there are better alternatives and the only good thing to come out of it for me was the discovery of the “French Stones” Vosegine/ La Loraine, which I still actively collect, and there too they vary wildly in performance.
There is tons of info, test and techniques on the BBW on this and other fora. Try it, experiment with all the techniques and see if it works for you. Some can bevel set and some can finish.
In the older times blue belgian whetstone was not sold as a sole whetstone. But LaLorraine, the reddish blue stone, which is a separate layer in the coticule quarries, was typically sold. This LaLorraine layer shows significantly better sharpening performance than the normal quality BBW stones.
Attachment 221559
The interesting thing is, that old investigations of Grognard (Grognard: Le Roche Salmines A coticule dans la region de Salmchateau) showed only a small amount of garnets (grenats/ spessartine) in Lorraine stones. The garnet size was measured as high as in the Blue whetstone (Phyllade).
So following garnet concentrations and sizes are typical for the different Belgian whetstones, according to Grognards investigations:
Coticule: 35-45 % garnets 10-20µm
BBW: 20-25% garnets 15-30 µm
LaLorraine: 5% garnets 30µm
The interesting thing concerning the LaLorraine is following. First - there is a significant amount of quartz in the stone, quartz particles that were visible through a microscope.
The quartz in coticules normally is seen as a poison. The abrasive performance is done by the garnets. But in the LaLorraine stone the included quartz could be an abrasive too.
Second is, that the Lorraine stones contain a lot of Ironoxide. Iron oxide in form of red Fe2O3 is a good polishing substance. It is a very fine polisher, you may know the red polishing paste which mainly consist of red ironoxide.
So these two specialties in the La Lorraine stones may be responsible for the good honing performance of these stones.
Another interesting issue that Grognard found concerning BBW backed to coticule is, that there is a correlation of the garnet content of BBW to the quality of the accompanying coticule.
In natural combination coticules, where the quality of the coticule layer was regarded only as medium, the garnet content of the BBW on the backside was as low as 5%.
On the other hand he found in most of the high quality coticules a garnet amount of up to 25% in BBW side.
I use my purple side( that color seems to match mine after it is wet & slurried) I wouldn't call it blue. :shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by TristanLudlow
I use it after the 4K Norton ,,, slurried first,,, then water only,,,, jump to the yellow side to a very light slurry,,,,, then finish the razor with the yellow side, water only,,,,, then strop.
I tried it, and it worked, but to be honest, except for the experiment I didn't see the point as it is slower working than the regular coticule side of the hone. I would rather buy a cheap small coticule than a larger BBW to work with. Also, if I remember the study well, one test person did feel the difference in edge obtained.
Well OP you are right. No one raves about honing on a Belgian Blue because they aren't phenomenal. They do work but ever so slowly. I've had a good bb before but on my combo coticule the bb side is slow as hell. I only use it if I feel like it. The coticule is much more effective as a hone. My 2 cents.. and if we're talking Canadian currency.. that's - 25 cents
I tend to slurry a softer coti slurry stone on mine if I am using the material. Just in an attempt to get some pull out of the gates. Obviously, the true nature of the stone will eventually come through as you dilute.
BBW is kind of like playing with random slates in an attempt to get a finishing stone. You look at them and they seem like they will be really good for the intended purpose, but then testing usually shows otherwise. If something is dead slow, you usually want some sort of concession in the form of absolute fineness but they don't get there. They have positives in the sense that a lot of them have genuinely nice feedback and are really not damaging at all. You want the redder stuff, generally. I only think that dark one I have is exceptional because the coti it is bound with is.
I'll admit that I don't use my BBW or Coti as my final finisher.
However, the BBW and Coti have both become indispensable in MY honing routine. I have been honing on these 2 hones almost exclusively for a couple of years now, with satisfying, and repeatable results. I have come to know my 2 hones quite well and know what these particular hones are capable of; others may yield different results and I can only speak for myself.
I do prefer a Thuringian finish on my razors, but that's only the final stage of my honing.
The Coti may be a more effective hone, as in that it works faster, but my BBW can do almost everything my Coti can do, being it slower and taking more time; but I don't really mind that.
My heavily slurried BBW will set a bevel without a problem and with dilutions will leave a very keen and superb edge, (that keenness I cannot get out of my Coti) that's ready to be finished; no other hones needed. Not to say I don't use my Coti with slurry to set bevels, because I'm impatient. It does depend how bad the condition of the current razor is, if it needs a lot of honing and the bevel is really far off, depending how patient I am I'll use the Coti. But if the razor is not in that bad of shape, I'll mostly just use the BBW.
I do however prefer to go to the Coti with plain water after the BBW, because it does seem to smooth out my edge nicely, which I like, and I can't yet get this from my BBW. After the Coti I go to a Thuringian hone to end my honing routine, because I just like the way it shaves my beard and my face, it's very keen, but very smooth, lovely edges.
The Coti I use most is neither fast, nor slow, somewhere in between, and I like the way it works on water; I might use a tiny hint of slurry after the BBW, but coming from the BBW with the slightest hint of slurry, I mostly use the coti with just water, if I had a very slow Coti on water I would probably slurry more.
My BBW is truly a big workhorse and does all my "dirty, hard" work.
It's all personal preference. I could probably skip the Coti and go from the BBW to the Thuri with slurry and dilutions. But for now I haven't experimented with that enough, so I'll stick to the Coti after the BBW and before the Thuri.
It's just a way I have been playing with the BBW and Coti that have created a routine for me through trial and error, we all hone a little different and like different things. It's all about finding what you like and prefer to hone on. etc. etc.
Everything shaving related is very subjective related matter.
If you ask Maurice at Ardennes Coticule for a BBW on which you intend to hone straight razors, you will most definitely get a BBW that's good for that purpose without a doubt.
I'm not saying the BBW is a magical hone, but the ones that are capable of honing razors certainly have a place in the honing of them, for me. That doesn't mean you have to use one, just means that you have to find what you like and what gets you results. Find what works for you.
If you like it, use it, if you don't, don't use it. It's all good.
The only bit of weirdness is this keenness limit idea with cotis. Maybe they are factoring in the slurry dulling effect that seems more prominent with some veins, idk... I have a few cotis that are so fine I can't justify the thuri, one in particular is finer than I thought they could get. I used to think ppl describing using coticule x, y, or z and relating some crazy equivalency were too enthusiastic until I got that. It was a bit of an eye opener.
I have both the BBWs you showed the pictures of, have you used those as a finisher? If so, with plain water? Or are they just good BBWs to hone onQuote:
Originally Posted by kcb5150
I'm curious, because I'll definitely try that out that soon, there's a lot more to be experimented; there's just a lot of variety and so much trial and error to get through.
But that's the great part of it all, the mystery, the experience, the collecting, using, etc.
Toys for boys.
I have used them to do the bulk of the work on their respective hones. The globular one is bound to an incredibly hard, slow coticule that is just nicer off water for the final refinement. The other is a choice Belgian stamped stone. I wish I could find it, I posted somewhere before my experiences with a big variety of bbw. I use slurry. You just have to experiment with Belgian stones in general. They tend to surprise with their performance ceilings
