Thread: Have you guys heard about the godly BBW?

Some folks here have told me that most BBW are similar to each other in quality. IME that has not been my observation. In any event they certainly seem to be a good match to your honing style. Thanks for sharing your experience. I will have to try it out to see if I get lucky.

Originally Posted by Kingfish

Some folks here have told me that most BBW are similar to each other in quality. IME that has not been my observation. In any event they certainly seem to be a good match to your honing style. Thanks for sharing your experience. I will have to try it out to see if I get lucky.

As far as I know, not every BBW is suitable for honing. The guys at Ardennes know what to look for, so you will get a useable BBW if you buy a "new" one, but since BBW was a cheap way to support thin coticule pieces in the past, not every vintage BBW side is equally suitable.

A member at coticule.be made an analysis of his (some?) BBW(s?) and found out, that it only contained about 4% garnets or so (which are known to be the main abrasve material of coticules, which are said to contain somewhere around 20-40%(???)).

Anyway, (usable) BBWs are said to be more consistent than coticules in general, but they are natural stones after all.

Regards,
tok

It is interesting that in bygone days the BBW was not considered to be a viable hone. In fact that 1929 edition of Moler's Barber Manual says that the blue backing of the yellow coticule is only there to reinforce the yellow honing surface. In the 1980s I bought three coticules from different barbers and each one told me that the yellow side was the hone and the dark half was "no good" for honing.

It is interesting that it is only in fairly recent years that the bbw was found to be an effective hone. I suppose most of the old barbers read the manual, or heard by word of mouth, that the bbw was useless and they accepted that as fact. Glad that some enterprising souls experiemented to find the true usefulness of the bbw.

I have noticed some differences in the bbw side of a number of naturals I have. Some are slightly better than others IME. For a long time I would set a bevel on a 1k or a 1200 dmt and follow with the bbw and slurry until hair was popping easily. Then finish on the yellow with water. Lately when I do use the coticule I do the same but use the yellow with light slurry rather than the bbw. Diluting to clear water to finish. One way or the other seems to work well for me.

I have noticed that not all bbw cut the same. In fact I thought they were all rated as 4k and thats it. It is by this misinformation that I came upon the really good bbw that I have, some characteristics of this natural combo I might add, is that the coticule side has specks of black or magnesium in the mix making it look like a gecko, the bbw side by the way is really thick more than an inch and probaby close to 1.5 if not more. It also seems to be really hard compared to the coticule. I guess the good questions following this discovery is, how do the garnets form in the layers and is there a reason why the coticule side has more? the depth they are at? since the coticule runs in w shaped strands or veins or whatever it makes no sense to me logically why there would be more garnets in the coticule vein than in the bbw vein? unless the garnets form in the coticule vein and some how infect the bbw near it. Damn coticules and bbw and all those rocks sure are addictive. I think coticules are my favorite hones now... and Jnats too. Coticules do have a mystery to them though that make them irresistible.

Originally Posted by Memorael

It also seems to be really hard compared to the coticule. I guess the good questions following this discovery is, how do the garnets form in the layers and is there a reason why the coticule side has more? the depth they are at? since the coticule runs in w shaped strands or veins or whatever it makes no sense to me logically why there would be more garnets in the coticule vein than in the bbw vein? unless the garnets form in the coticule vein and some how infect the bbw near it.

Good questions. I wonder if the consistency of the binder in the strata has something to do with it. I've also read that the garnets in the coticule are physically smaller than those in the blue. The percentages averaged in the yellow are higher than in the bbw according to stuff I've read. Why would that be ? The soup that the bbw consisted of being more difficult for the garnet to infiltrate than the yellow soup ? Metamorphic rock so how many eons did it take to produce our mysterious stones ? A geologist might study this stuff under a microscope (crushed material) and figure out what the density within each is. How much variation between samples from different veins and different locations of the same veins. All we can do it lay a razor on them and see how they work for us.

Jeez brother all this questions just make my HAD grow exponentially. I wish I had a razor that I could hone all the time and have it tell me I am sharper and smoother or something by those lines. Anyway anyone know where I should go to get some answers? I tried coticule.be and the thread is going just not as well as I wish it would. I NEED ANSWERS DAMN IT!... god knows there might be some super smooth edge producing BBW out there that need a new home, where its warm and theres plenty of beards and razors... I'm just sayin.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

It is interesting that in bygone days the BBW was not considered to be a viable hone. In fact that 1929 edition of Moler's Barber Manual says that the blue backing of the yellow coticule is only there to reinforce the yellow honing surface. In the 1980s I bought three coticules from different barbers and each one told me that the yellow side was the hone and the dark half was "no good" for honing.

The backing of most coticules is a piece of slate glued to the coticule to reinforce it. The Belgian blue side of the coticule often gets detached from the coticule due to the controlled explosions used to break the hill side down. Those bits of the vein that still have the BBW attached to the coticule are called natural combination hones.

Originally Posted by tok

As far as I know, not every BBW is suitable for honing. The guys at Ardennes know what to look for, so you will get a useable BBW if you buy a "new" one, but since BBW was a cheap way to support thin coticule pieces in the past, not every vintage BBW side is equally suitable.


Anyway, (usable) BBWs are said to be more consistent than coticules in general, but they are natural stones after all.

Regards,
tok

If you can get those guys to sell you a good one, that would probably be the best way.

One of the reasons IMHO that made BBW so easily overlooked was the color. When honing on a darker stone you don't see the swarf, lighter colored stones give visual feedback and most people like that.

Not having visual clues must make it harder for the miners to sort them too. In essence, the miners would have to take time and have the expertise to sort them.

Originally Posted by Kees

The backing of most coticules is a piece of slate glued to the coticule to reinforce it. The Belgian blue side of the coticule often gets detached from the coticule due to the controlled explosions used to break the hill side down. Those bits of the vein that still have the BBW attached to the coticule are called natural combination hones.

Yes that is true today. In the old days they didn't use slate they glued bbw on the back of coticules. The use of slate for reinforcing the back of the yellow coticule is only in the past 40 or 50 years IIRC. At least so I've been told.

If you look around there is a lot more blue stone than yellow in these mines. This is part of the reason we still have coticules available to us. These stones are regularly used for building walls and building facades. To sort through this mass quantity of stones and find those that work as hones is not a thorough use of time. In fact I would almost assume that the yellow veins running through the rocks were originally thought of as an annoyance as they were most likely mining this rock for building not for honing and the non-homogeneous stones would most likely be considered weaker. Of course, this could never be proven as this stone was first mined long before any of us and very little is known from the many previously open mines.
Actually the limited knowledge of blue stone as a whetstone is obviously caused by it's recent discovery, but also it could be because the majority of the mines did not have a viable blue stone in regards to use as a whetstone.

-G