Thread: getting an edge with a coticule

Well, you're not the first and you won't be the last. I had a Cnat, Welsh slates, and Arkansas stones on top of my synthetic stones. Kept switching from stone to stone, and mixing up the progression with no joy. What finally allowed me to get solid repeatable results was setting the natural stones aside, and learning a straight forward 1K, 4K, 8K synthetic stone progression. It takes out every variable but the honer's technique and makes it easy to zero in on what you need to improve on.

Working with others in person makes learning so much easier. There is a very skilled honer that lives near you in Grain Valley. I think if you PM modine and ask him if there will be any get together or meets in the area or perhaps you could be super lucky and he would have time to meet with you one on one. It is by far the shortest distance to achieving your goal.

Originally Posted by RezDog

Working with others in person makes learning so much easier. There is a very skilled goner that lives near you in Grain Valley. I think if you PM modine and ask him if there will be any get together or meets in the area or perhaps you could be super lucky and he would have time to meet with you one on one. It is by far the shortest distance to achieving your goal.

That's excellent advice! Grain Valley is actually only about 5 minutes from my house. I'll definitely shoot him a PM and see if he's up for giving a newbie some pointers

I feel like two important things new people need to focus on when honing is the pressure they use and keeping the blade flat while doing x strokes. I just go very little pressure throughout the whole process

Originally Posted by Butzy

Hello all, seeking some advice here because I've run out of other reading material on the subject. In short, I am unable to achieve an acceptable edge on my straight razor using a coticule.
....snip....
So the question is, after a month of trying to get an acceptable edge and failing, is it time to move to a synthetic or different type of hone? I know the easy answer is to get my blades professionally honed, but i'd like to be self sufficient in this practice. And is this a common issue with first time shavers?

Any input would be welcomed! Thanks

The easy and most inexpensive solution is to send the razor out to a professional one more
time perhaps two or three...
Most of the professionals sit down with a thousand bucks of rocks and a lot of experience.

Use and enjoy the razor until it needs a touch up again.

Then try the coticule again. Clear water or lather, no slurry you are just touching up.
Five gentle hone strokes, strop smoothly and shave test it should shave as well or better than the day before.
if it shaves well put the hone away until next time it is needed.
if it is not better give it another five or six smooth as silk tender strokes on the coticule hone, strop and shave test.
....
at the end of the week or end of your patience if it does not shave well send it out again.

While doing this start saving for a nice modern water stone like one of:
Naniwa Specialty Stone - Super Stone 10000 Grit
Naniwa Specialty Stone - Super Stone 12000 Grit
at least five other choices....
Use one of these as your touch up hone. Again a handful of smooth as silk tender hone strokes
when the blade tugs a bit more than it should. Some would do this once a week once a month
to maintain an edge. Maintaining an edge takes a lot less hardware than a honemaster needs.

The Norton 4k/8k combo with a lapping plate would be another option.
The pyramid method with the 4k/8k Norton combo works well for some
and the edge does profit from a 10k or 12k finish if you have one.

Coticules take practice be gentle and if it does not work send the razor out before
doing damage. But try...

I had a similar experience using my coticule for the first time. I ruined my razors geometry and dulled it beyond belief. I got myself a chosera 1K and reset the bevel. Then I really focused on my honing stroke.

Making sure I was getting a good hit across the whole edge and getting to the apex of the edge was very important. Gssixgun's coticule one stone hone video helped a lot. His advice regarding not using TOO LITTLE pressure to not hit the edge fully really helped me.

Also, I did spend some time speaking with Jarrod from the Superior Shave about choosing a coticule that was "user friendly" or as much as a coticule can be.

Try the sharpie test to see if you're getting a consistent hit along the edge and spine. It may help.

This is such a classic subject: "getting an edge with a coticule". Here is my take on this subject, hoping to be helpful to you.

1) You are new to this great hobby! Fine, but your stropping sucks! Really sucks! Likely your strop sucks as well! So does everyone else's at the beginning (including myself). You got a great shave ready razor and could not maintain it long enough because your stropping sucks! Ok, I am kidding....but only halfway....your stropping sucks! So, first and foremost, after getting a razor, you start investigating your stropping, your technique, your strop quality etc...so, you start questioning around: what is a good strop? You can have someone hone for you a great edge, but still, you cannot maintain it. Buying a second coticule does not fix that. I hope you got my point! Fix stropping first, before you jump on the hones!

2)You bought a second coticule because the first one did not help. Classic! We all did that. Now, coticules can be great, or worthless, depending how you look at them. Most are not razor finishers, keep that in mind! Butchers and woodworkers bought them a lot for their tools, and even them did not like most of them, and had to select, as they were too coarse. Their edge profile is super smooth in most of them though, and as such, if you can have an edge sharp enough with other means, then you can always finish in coticule (see this: http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...g-journey.html.) Coticule is just some rock from Belgium as far as you are concerned, until you find where it fits in your routine,with your razors, and know if it is a slow, or fast stone, hard or soft, can it finish up to 9-10 k level with oil or lather, or even wax, or not, can it finish satisfactorily with running water, or not (see Dr.Matt videos on youtube). Maybe they are just great midrange stones that can be workhorses and refine the blade perfectly from 3k up to 7-8k level, so you can finish on something else? Black Surgical Arkansas, or a JNAT come to mind. Expand your horizons, but learn where your coticules fit first. Ask a mentor nearby!

3) Coticules are OIL stones that can also be used with water! Not the other way around! So, did you try to finish with mineral, or honing oil? If so, as mentioned to you in the past, now that you have two coticules, one should be reserved only for finishing. It means, first you select which one finishes better, then that one is flattened, and burnished (check online how to do that). Then you never ever slurry that surface, and only finish with oil(or running water...your pick which ever works for you). The other one becomes the stone surface you use slurry on. Coticules with milky slurry work as 2-4 k stones, and with medium slurry as 4-5k stones. So, you cannot expect to "finish" great in a surface that was used with slurry.Having a bbw on the other side is great help. Learn how to use and maximize that one, as it can be a workhorse preparing the edge for the yellow side to finish.

4) Last, as Euclid and Marshal told you, get 4/8 Norton or 3/8 Naniwa. They are a must to 1)set a bevel, and 2) fix the geometry. If you shaved with the razor, you do not need a 1k for setting the bevel. The 3k or 4k will do just fine, just need more time as they are slower. Only on new, or damaged blades you would need 1k. Learn to make a perfect bevel, and bring the edge to 8k reliably. Indeed, this is helpful: http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...ggestions.html

5) Use magnification: http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...endations.html

6) Your strop, and stropping sucks! Thousands of barbers in the past did not ever bother to hone, but had to learn and practice stropping to stay in this business. They would send their razors out for a new edge every six months or so, or in big outfits, had one guy in the crew who had the knack to hone.

7) Your strop, and stropping sucks!

8) If you try all of these above, and magically fixed the honing puzzle, and got great edges out of your coticules, you will likely still have a problem! Please refer to points 1, 6, &7.

I hope you find my "funny" pointers helpful! Happy "coticuling"!

Rather than buying a second coticule, it would have been better to re-consider the skill of the guy holding it. Since you are new to this, I strongly suggest that you don't invest in any more hones until you can get a shaving edge off of one of your two coticules. If Modine is 5 minutes away, then the solution is a no brainer.

Thank you guys for all the help! I have definitely made some mistakes on this journey but it's nice to hear that this is pretty much the norm and not the exception in some regards...

fxt913, I had no idea that the coticule was a oil stone first and then a waterstone. a lot of what i read before buying said to only use water and didn't say anything about keeping a stone without using slurry for a "finisher" i suppose since i have two stones now (ugh) i can try this method.

Utopian- you're absolutely right, i should have just sold the one before buying the other, but i wanted to keep practicing in the mean time. didn't do much good, did it?

I suppose I will sell one of the stones here soon as i'm going get some synthetic hones and work on those, per all your recommendations. I will say they are both exceptional stones from what I can tell, I really lucked out. One is a La Grosse Blanche (because it sunburns) and that was just by chance, and the other is a La Veinette because I bought it that way from Ardennes. Just wish i could use them correctly

Thanks again for all of the help guys. This has been a wealth of knowledge that i haven't been able to get anywhere else and has given me a direction to start working towards since I had hit a wall! Great stuff

Originally Posted by Butzy

Thank you guys for all the help! I have definitely made some mistakes on this journey but it's nice to hear that this is pretty much the norm and not the exception in some regards...

fxt913, I had no idea that the coticule was a oil stone first and then a waterstone. a lot of what i read before buying said to only use water and didn't say anything about keeping a stone without using slurry for a "finisher" i suppose since i have two stones now (ugh) i can try this method.

Utopian- you're absolutely right, i should have just sold the one before buying the other, but i wanted to keep practicing in the mean time. didn't do much good, did it?

I suppose I will sell one of the stones here soon as i'm going get some synthetic hones and work on those, per all your recommendations. I will say they are both exceptional stones from what I can tell, I really lucked out. One is a La Grosse Blanche (because it sunburns) and that was just by chance, and the other is a La Veinette because I bought it that way from Ardennes. Just wish i could use them correctly

Thanks again for all of the help guys. This has been a wealth of knowledge that i haven't been able to get anywhere else and has given me a direction to start working towards since I had hit a wall! Great stuff

I'm not sure how much help it will be, but this is how things went with my coticule:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/honin...-me-drink.html

Enumerated in that thread is every step I took to get an edge from my stone. Including burnishing it, and use with oils. I don't know about 'oilstone first' as everything I see about modern usage is with water. But I do know that historically they were used with just about everything.