Hello,

Sorry for another coticule help post. But I wanted to explain my problems and ask for help. I have been trying to get an edge on this coticule for I think now at least two weeks. And I just cannot get any further than hht1 or maybe hht2, but mostly a rather weak hht1. If I try unicot I get edges that are quite nice, not what I get when stropping on a CrOx strop, but smoother and easily shaveable. But trying Dilucot only gets me to a pulling shave that ends up not too close.

So what I have been doing: Honing on slurry in various ways, circles, halfstrokes, but mostly the latter. I create some milky slurry and dilute down every few sets of halfstrokes, mostly by feel or when I feel like it. I can consistently get a slight violin on the hht after that. And I dulled the edge before, so that should not be from before. But then I just cannot refine the edge further. I don't know. I tried a power touchup as described on coticule.be and quite a few strokes on pure water, with very little pressure or even just balancing the razor. Or directly on water. Nothing got me further. But again, I can get an edge via unicot that is quite shaveable so my honing stroke is not totally off.

What I observed was that the bevel seems to be polished not up to the very edge, but a little bit below that. I have nice even scratch pattern up to maybe half a millimeter up to the edge and from there on a more chaotic pattern and sort of a matte finish. I then proceeded to check if my coticule was flat, and it was. It just has a super slight high spot in the middle that I created by using the slurry stone only on the ends of the hone. So I don't think that this would be a problem

So now some facts about the coticule it is a 150x40 mm (~6x1.5") new coticule from Ardennes-coticule. I don't know the vein, but regarding the hardness it seems in the middle. I can scratch it with my fingernail, but just a little bit. When honing on water it does not autoslurry, or at least it does not feel like it. But I normally rinse every 10 strokes, to ensure that. Oh and as it came from the factory, it had a slight convexity that I kept. By that I can hone a little more evenly (the hone wear is concentrated on a relatively small spot, so the toe and heel get even wear too).

Thank you in advance, I will be thankful for any tips.