Thread: to BBW or not to BBW

I need advise from expert honers. I hone with manmade waterstones, I want to start honing with natural stones. Should I purchase a BBW and a coticule or just a coticule as the all inclusive stone? Beveling, sharpening and polishing according to the slurry on the coticule. Please advise and where to get them. Thanks, Juan,

IME you can do fine with the coticule by itself. (along with a slurry stone) OTOH, a natural coticule/bbw is one of my favorite things for beauty and rarity. I do like to use both because I have them but the coti is cool if you don't have the blue. If you are outside of the USA I would contact Ardennes Coticule. If you are on this side of the pond SRD and other vendors have the stones.

+1, I'd just go for the coticule. I have a Coti/BBW combo and I think I've used the BBW side all of twice!

Theres nothing wrong with it but I find I can get just as good an edge with just the coticule side.

Not to disagree with two very knowledgeable mods, but I rather like my BBW. I can actually get a great shave right off of it.
My thoughts follow that cotis are more money and rarer than the BBW. Even though I will never wear down a coti in my life time I feel that I would rather wear down a readily available stone that costs half the price when it comes to the first steps then just finish on the coti.
Besides, as I mentioned before, I lucked out and got a great BBW that gives a shaveable edge right off of it. (Thanks Rich!)

-G

I like both the Coti and the BBW. And while you can use a Coti to do everything from bevel setting to finishing, learning to do so, and finding a stone you enjoy, can be a less-then-pleasurable experience.

The simple route is to use the BBW with slurry to sharpen, and then the coti finish/polish. I own a coti, a bbw and a combo and use them all, depending on my mood and the razor I'm working on. I'm a big fan of my bbw and always use it after my bevel is set.

I've not got my head around the BBW. I don't seem to get anywhere I can't (quicker) on the coticule. As you can see from other replies, YMMV.

Agreed anything you can do with the bbw you can do with the coti.

I have a coti combo stone and have been mostly using the coti side. Lately tho I have used the bbw more and I like it.

It polishes the blade up nicely for me before I finish on the coti.

Ive been learning to use the Dilucot method with my BBW and finishing with the Coti. The shaves have been very nice. If I had the option to buy a combo vs just the coti, I would definitely buy the combo.

I use my BBW between bevel setting and finishing on the coti. I get the most out of it when I use it with a fairly heavy slurry. After the BBW thought i always go to the coti to finish.

Since BBW are not that expensive, both the BBW and coti are worth purchasing. MarkinLondon gives us a formula to use these stones, my next question is how many stroke or laps per stone. I am familiar with manmade waterstones and their cutting characteristics or number of laps to do the job. I just need to know the average laps per stone of the BBW and coti? Thanks, Juan.