Thread: coticule help

Well you have to decide if you want smooth feel or close. Coticules produce a very smooth feeling shave but for closeness you're better off with a hard ark, black or translucent. They will produce a finer edge especially once you have the stroke pressure figured out but they can be a little crisp sometimes. I actually use a coti to tame an angry ark edge. A few light strokes should make face feel improve.

So you have these garnets that are in the matrix and of varying sizes although not by much. Also amounts. You make a slurry and these garnets are loose on top. At that point they are "relatively" big and do more cutting.As you thin out the slurry and they may break down as you go to water. Then with water only you are left with the garnets just prodruding out of the matrix wich limits their cutting ability. Use only light pressure so you don't release fresh garnets.

How big are the garnets and how hard is the matrix of your stone?

This is why I think you have to learn each natural hone.

Try it with oil. That helps a lot of coticules that aren't great at finishing - also using it under running water helps too. I wouldn't use DMT slurry. After the stone is flat smooth the surface out with a natural slurry stone. Take a razor that is shave ready or 8k ish level and do only finishing strokes.

A lot of coticules aren't fine enough for finishing. It can be hard to find a good one as well.

Originally Posted by Christian1

Try it with oil. That helps a lot of coticules that aren't great at finishing - also using it under running water helps too. I wouldn't use DMT slurry. After the stone is flat smooth the surface out with a natural slurry stone. Take a razor that is shave ready or 8k ish level and do only finishing strokes.

A lot of coticules aren't fine enough for finishing. It can be hard to find a good one as well.

Coticules are hard and non-absorbent so you can use them with oil and clean it off afterwards with a detergent. I prefer to use glycerine since it produces a similar lubrication to oil, but is water soluble and cleans off more easily. You can also use shaving lather as a lubricant as barbers in the past have done with their barber hones. Or you can just finish with water/running water as suggested.

I prefer to take a final coticule edge to a finisher like a Vermio or la Lune or pasted strop. I have even read that, if you have a combination coti, you can finish with the BBW side to achieve a sharper edge.

Each of my coticules behaves a bit differently and I find that I use one in the early stages of honing and finish with another. The differences also depend on the razor. It’s seldom predictable and I just go with what seems to be working with the stone/razor combination at the time. And, I have the time to have fun with it.

Originally Posted by DZEC

Coticules are hard and non-absorbent so you can use them with oil and clean it off afterwards with a detergent. I prefer to use glycerine since it produces a similar lubrication to oil, but is water soluble and cleans off more easily. You can also use shaving lather as a lubricant as barbers in the past have done with their barber hones. Or you can just finish with water/running water as suggested.

I prefer to take a final coticule edge to a finisher like a Vermio or la Lune or pasted strop. I have even read that, if you have a combination coti, you can finish with the BBW side to achieve a sharper edge.

Each of my coticules behaves a bit differently and I find that I use one in the early stages of honing and finish with another. The differences also depend on the razor. It’s seldom predictable and I just go with what seems to be working with the stone/razor combination at the time. And, I have the time to have fun with it.

This is another great point.
Some razors hate Coticules!! This is true for different stones and razors.
I have several razors that just do not take a coti edge and some that take their best edge from that same stone.
I have said many times, if you find a razor that takes a great edge from any honing medium keep it as a tester to get a true reading of what a stone has to offer.
Sometimes a person will get a stone try it on a razor and when it doesnt take a great edge from it they think its the stone - it may not be.

thanks for the good info fellas! Does lubrication of different types sort of hold the edge away from the stone so that it's touching it lightly thus giving it a finer effect?

I have to use lather to tame the garnets, then they work for me, but I see you already tried that.
I have some old harder Coticules, resembling a La Veinette or La Dressante vein, I honed one up yesterday going from the BBW with lather to the Coti with lather.
Test shaved without stropped and it was very good. Oil didn't give me a satisfactory result though. It was a Swedish steel razor though, that's some damn fine steel.
But I really don't like to finish on water on my Coticules.

Originally Posted by tintin

thanks for the good info fellas! Does lubrication of different types sort of hold the edge away from the stone so that it's touching it lightly thus giving it a finer effect?

I think the garnets in the Coti and BBW are special and don't really clog easily or round off/wear down as with other stones. That advantage is that these stones keep cutting very well all the time.

I like the Coticule effect on my skin, but I have to modify the interaction with the Coti's garnets and the steel from my razors to achieve a smoother edge. Oil or lather would help, lather is what I prefer and works best for me. Very slick lather.

And one major tip I once received. Hone while holding the stone in hand, find the center of the stone and balance that middle just short on your fingertips so it JUST stays on your hands. IF you were to apply too much pressure on the razor, the stone would tip over and fall, ergo you keep just enough and the right amount of pressure to keep the razor flat on the stone. That has done wonders for me.

Just to reinforce the depth of information available on SRP, I provide the following link to an article from, I think, our previous contributor.

https://sharprazorpalace.com/honing/...ience-bbw.html

I find hand soap to work very well at squeezing out extra sharpness out of the coticule. Going back and forth from stropping to finishing on the stone also helps zero in on that edge you are seeking. My metric being how well it performs on the HHT.

Maybe I should try lapping the BBW side as see what that does. It doesn't look like it's been used or lapped.