Thread: Coticule Hones

There's been a lot said since I last checked in, so I'd like to respond to some things and ask some more questions. But first, I want to make something very clear. Nothing that I say is personal. I don't care if you're right or I'm right or if we're both right or if neither is right. All I care about is that there is good and diverse information available on the forum. My posts are not to attack anyone and I don't read responses as attacks against me. I apologize if what I say comes off as overly critical, but I think it is very important to question things you read. I don't take anything for granted unless I am 100% confident in the source; I'm not sure that there is anything on this forum that I am 100% confident in, regardless of who wrote it. For these reasons, I try to qualify my posts by explaining that what I say is about my own experiences with my razors on my hones (or whatever), or based on what I have read (and I try to cite if I can), or based on my own logic - I then leave it to the reader to make their own decisions. I read everything with those qualifications in mind, and I think it is important to do so. So, that said...

Zib, yours was the first post, so I'll start there:
It is entirely possible that vintage stones aren't still around because they are better. I certainly don't know; I don't think anyone can know without trying all the coticules in the world, vintage and new, and compiling some serious data. I am speculating, much as I believe you are. There sure are a lot of junky old razors around, but, then again, one can buy pretty much any vintage razor and, if that razor can be honed, it will be at least a very good shaver. This is not true of new production razors, if you consider the Masters and the Zeepk's and all those. There is a difference between junk steel and razors in junk condition; I don't know of old razors with junk steel.

I never said anyone was lying; I said I suspend judgment. You are entirely correct, you saw the whole email and I didn't. None of us did, actually. And your relationship with them is different from mine or anyone else's. As such, you may have reason to approach what they say less critically than I do or others do. I would hope you would not say it's a bad thing for me to critically read information from sources that I have no background knowledge of. I read everything critically when I have no background knowledge; to do otherwise is to accept something on blind faith.

With regards to barbers lapping or not lapping their hones, you said it's because the hones were precious and they didn't want to waste them. I've not actually talked to any old barbers, so I don't know. Perhaps you have and perhaps you haven't - I don't know. If you have, I don't know how many. What I can say, though, is that looks like a large generalization without any clear support, so I approach that statement critically.

For individuals lapping their own or needing to, I think that varies a lot. I use my coti with water only, and mine is pretty hard. I may never need to lap it. But maybe someone out there has a soft one they use to set bevels on loads of wedges. Maybe that person has a technique such that they can hone on uneven hones, or maybe he'll beat his head against a wall and hone till his coti is totally gone and never get there. I thought I said lapping should be approached on a case by case basis depending on lots or variables - if not, let me say that clearly now.

Should people lap or not - well, I generally frown on wastefulness, but people own their coti's and it's up to them to do what they want with them. There are mods to razors that I hate to see and it pains me to see a nice vintage razor that's been terribly mis-honed, but it happens. There are others out there. No, not an infinite supply, but enough that it doesn't keep me up at night. To be clear - these are personal statements about how I feel; nothing more.

RayMan: You mentioned that you honed 70 razors on your coti and didn't notice much dishing. But there is a lot that you haven't said. How much time did each razor see on your coti? Did you set bevels or just do 10 strokes? Was there slurry involved? Do you have a hard coti, or a soft one that generates slurry by itself when honed on with just water? Were the razors hard steel or soft steel? In my previous post, I mentioned that just doing a few passes will not likely dish a coti, but repeatedly using heavy slurry probably will. Thus far, I don't think we disagree on anything. Do we?

With regards to the profit thing - it seems like there are more variables here than mentioned. From Bart's post, it sounds like there is lots of coti in the ground, but the wages vs risk is a big factor in getting it out; one must consider what rare means. Also note, I clearly stated I am not implying that there is profiteering or misinformation going on. I simply stated that I would approach statements about rarity and value with skepticism. It seems like my statements here were read as being accusatory towards the mine/miners/owners. That was not my intent in any way.

I appreciate that you share in expressing what you don't know about various things, like vintage vs new, how various hones from different layers and locations behave, etc. I'm also glad that you started your statements by expressing the uncertainty that I expressed in my post.

Bart: With regards to dishing, I'm not totally convinced that dished hones can work or should be used to hone (maybe those are two separate things). Here's a few reasons why. There are lots of frowning razors out there, but I always take a frown out of a razor while setting the bevel. The frown got there somehow, but it doesn't mean it was shaving well. There are razors out there with multiple bevels; the bevels must have been reset numbers of times. This makes me think some were bad for shaving or steel was removed needlessly. Either way - bad (imo). I've read a lot of threads on here where people hone and hone and hone and can't get a bevel - I've done it myself. That is continual use that is unsuccessful - maybe that's happened to people in the past. There seem to be a lot of people on the forum who think that back in the day, razors were not particularly sharp, and people were just getting by - there was a thread about this recently. It seems a lot about the success of shavers back in the day is assumed and unknown. I myself don't know, and I suspend judgment. I would expect that with hones and razors, we see some that were masterfully used and some that were terribly mistreated and some in the middle. I have no idea which are which.

Your point about raising slurry on parts that the razor does not heavily wear is extremely valuable. I had not considered that before. I would like to point out, however, that this will prevent dishing. To practice this to avoid dishing makes me thing that dishing is less than ideal. Maybe yes, maybe no. I don't know. You also said flat enough to avoid ill effects; if I was to read that blindly, I would say that that means flat is important, which would make me think dished is bad. Again, I don't know...

Bart, you mention differences, and I've noticed on your site you rate the edges you can get off coticules. What I'm curious is, are those differences based, in general, on the vein, the grade, both, other factors, or a combination. My initial response was where it seem to me that Zib was saying select is select is select and the vein didn't matter, and, from what I saw on your site and in other reading, that was not the case. So I guess I'm saying "I don't know, but I don't think so..."

With regards to mining the best, I thought I said, but maybe I didn't - I meant to also include that if you pull out X hone sized rocks, and there is a "vast quantity" still in the ground, you're more likely to reject "substandard" ones and only process "excellent" ones. So it's not only a question of what was mined, but also what was processed and sold. Again, I could be wrong, I think I said I'm not sure, but if I didn't - I'm not sure.

Nifty: Yes, a uniform dish can be like adding tape. But, I would point out that there has been a lot of controversy about how adding tape affects the edge and the razor over it's "lifetime." Personally, I think that over the razor's lifetime is... weak at best because not much metal is removed over a normal razor's lifetime (Yes, there are lots of worn down razors out there, but we don't know what they were subjected to...). In much the same way that there seems to be no right or wrong or clear answer (as far as I know) in the taping argument, I don't think there can be one in the dished argument.

The question of should honemeisters, or anyone honing for others, maintain flat stones because that's what others have is an interesting one indeed. I'd not considered that before, actually. Very interesting...

I'm not sure whether or not your last statement (coti is unique because...) is accurate. I've got a number of hones that are different based on whether I use slurry, how much slurry I use, and how broken down the slurry is. The coti may be the most widely used hone like this (though I also don't know if that's true, but it seems that way to me - note the uncertainty), but I am quite sure it's not the only on.

Let me close by saying again, nothing personal, there's lots I don't know, there's lots that is disagreed upon, there's lots that works and lots of different ways to do things. Whether I'm right or wrong, I'm just as happy so long as there is good, usable, and complete (so much as complete is possible) information out there for others to use.

Wow, Guys, I just had some info from the quarry and wanted to share it, that's all.
I've been getting a lot of emails and pm's and thought it'd be a good idea to share.
I'm not an expert by any means. I talk to Bart and Rob at the quarry. I also talk to Howard at the perfect edge, Tony Miller, Don at SRD, and I haven't spoke to Lynn in a while. I also speak to Bob Keyes aka Altima55. This is where i get my info, but this original thread was really an email from Rob paraphrased...

If I had known that my comments would scrutinized like this, I would never have posted. I didn't mean to set Holli off like that, or imply anything. I may ask the mods to delete this thread all together....

There certainly has been some interesting discussion, but I wouldn't say that I've been set off. I'm not attacking anyone or trying to be defensive. I'm just trying to clearly state what I mean and avoid misunderstandings. This is not personal to me, and I hope it isn't to anyone else. It's just about getting good information out there for others to use. I hope that's all any of us want to do, though we may not always agree on what constitutes good information.

Should the mods, or anyone else decide to delete, that is their call - I'll leave that to more capable minds than my own. And should the mods or anyone else take issue with what I've said, I will approach that with a totally open mind and would like to hear about it so I do not unintentionally cause any issues in the future. Either way, I'll stay out of this thread from hereon. Since I will no longer comment here, I would ask that others refrain from commenting on my previous posts. Please disregard them, as I have no wish to be misunderstood or to offend anyone.

I'm here to learn and, hopefully to help others learn in some way too, not to be right or to make anyone believe as I do. I hope that is always clear.

I sincerely hope this thread isn't locked or removed, it's one of the best I've read in a while.

Zib, I really enjoyed reading your post, and Rob Celis' thoughts that you included as well. Rob is kind of like a hero to me. I read Dylan's response not as an attack at all, but rather as a frank "yeah..but" that one would find in person around a table at which people share an intense common interest. Around natural stones, especially rare ones, I have the same mental dialogue between culture/sentimentality and skepticism. And I'm very interested in reading other peoples' thinking on these things, especially if they are experienced.

In terms of disclosure, I fall very deeply on the sentimental side of these discussions. There is no scientific support for owning the number of naturals that I do just to hone my razors, and skepticism never really entered into it. Aside from what they do, I love the stones for what they are, how rare they are, their history, and the cultures that unearthed and prized them. Jimmy has a line from one of my favorite Yeats poems as his sig: "Man is in love and loves what vanishes." That's this forum in one sentence.

That out of the way, I actually enjoy reading contrarian views, to keep my love for the hones themselves from blurring too deeply into what they can actually do as a practical matter. Or how valuable they really are to people who don't share my interest, or how long before the stones and any knowledge of how to use them, are both gone for good. Sadly, few kids today get to grow up with a knife, let alone learn how to sharpen anything, or care for tools, or know why that might be useful.

I'm not chucking out my naturals for a set of Shaptons anytime soon, but I do appreciate an honest reality check. Otherwise, my kitchen cabinets would be stacked with hoarded naturals instead of groceries. Really.

Lots of excellent information in this thread

I have to +1 Bart on his response to the whole "the best are mined/produced first" comment.

Since coticules ARE naturally produced layers of rock, there is NO way a comment like that could be proven. Even if there was a "best" section of coticule, there's absolutely no way, unless you ARE God, or whichever almight deity you may believe in. Who knows what lies hundreds, even thousands of feed below the areas they are mining now?

And as far as the coticule being an endangered rock, so to speak, I'm sure there is many other places, as Bart said, where coticule still exists, and was mined in the past.

Who's to say that Bart (or any of us for that matter) might inherit/amass a fortune sometime and purchase some land known to contain coticule, and decide to "harvest" those veins?

True, just like any precious natural resource, there is only so much of it in the earth, but I don't think we'll see the end of it anytime soon, as long as it is not squandered.

Just a few of my thoughts

Originally Posted by avatar1999

Lots of excellent information in this thread

I have to +1 Bart on his response to the whole "the best are mined/produced first" comment.

Since coticules ARE naturally produced layers of rock, there is NO way a comment like that could be proven. Even if there was a "best" section of coticule, there's absolutely no way, unless .......)

Yep sort of like digging the bottom half of a post-hole first.

Originally Posted by zib

If I had known that my comments would scrutinized like this, I would never have posted.

Now now, you know that's not true! You care about people and about this forum and when you see people making mistakes you can't help but say something

There's a lot of info in this thread. I think it should stay

I have practiced very little on the few coticules I've had, and my improvement on them when using them as finishing hones doesn't compare to the success I get off other finishing hones. I'm always interested in more information that might encourage me to keep playing with them and trying to get a better edge

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Now now, you know that's not true! You care about people and about this forum and when you see people making mistakes you can't help but say something

There's a lot of info in this thread. I think it should stay

I have practiced very little on the few coticules I've had, and my improvement on them when using them as finishing hones doesn't compare to the success I get off other hones. I'm always interested in more information that might encourage me to keep playing with them and trying to get a better edge

I agree. I'd hate to see this thread go away because there's a lot of good information. I'd also like to see Holi back here because I don't think that the back and forth would do anything but help the entire community.

Yes, Please keep the post. I'm so enamored with Coticules and their production. I find all information from Rob and Maurice facinating. Your example from them is one of the main things I look for in Honing section.

Perhaps we could encourage them for regular updates of their one of a kind production on this forum. Bart's new forum was a great addition helping our knowledge of this facinating stone.
MikeB

I ripped this off from Bart's site. Here is some coticule porn to stimulate y'all.