Have you guys heard about the godly BBW?

so I was very unfortunate and put a ding on my only puma razor and 24/7 workhorse... I know, I love that puma so much that I only use it completely ignoring my other razors. Anyway so I dinged it and the ding is so small I figured o well... I'll just remove it with a combo coti I have for kicks and two days later working the BBW side the ding is almost gone. So I decided to see what the shave off the BBW was like and jeez... I have to say this even though I don't want to, but the edge is nicer than the coticule side... Anyone seen this or experienced this before?
The next set of questions is anyone have any hard proof that the BBW side is inferior in grit size to the coticule side? and why is it purple? could it be that the color of the stone is irrelevant and each slab has to be treated independently? kinda like the layers of the coticules where some have better characteristics for razors than others? This is nuts... I thought I had my HAD under control but the beast is fighting pretty hard right now.:aargh:

Did you raise a slurry on the BBW? Was it a thin or thick slurry? Did you try it with just water?

Would love to check, but need to know what you did in more detail please :)

I started off with a slurry and did the dilucote method then when all the slurry was gone I just got lazy and continued on until I noticed the edge was really really bright. Also I just finished messing around with it even more and I must say that the coti side feels more aggressive, and some swarf came out when I messed with the coti. Went back to the BBW side and it felt rougher than before after a couple of strokes using the circle strokes toe x and heel x patterns after a while it felt pretty smooth again and couldn't feel any scratches happening at all again. It was super sharp again, HHT test at this sharpness is a beauty the hairs just seem to get sliced by air or something.

I'm still itching to get a good sized combi stone, I like having multiple avenues of aproach for honing. My current BBW has a grey inclusion in the middle of it so I worry about it's ability to hone properly. One day I sould take a polished edge across it and see what it's doing to the edge.

I sold a member here a BBW and he love's it, He tells me he shaves off it, and it's every bit as good as Coti...BBW's are normally in 4k range according to Ardennes, Coti's are 8-10k...I'm sure the BBW's are a bit higher than that...But why not ask the Coti Guru, Bart..You mentioned Dilucot, So you must be a disciple of Coticule.be....?

I used to use a BBW during my normal honing. A the time I was going from a King 1k to the BBW with slurry (which I gradually diluted) to the coticule with just water. But it wasn't until I got and was testing out a Dragon's Tongue that I actually shaved off the BBW. I did the DT and BBW both straight off the 1k (one razor per hone, identical Sheffield quarter hollows) - for each hone I started with a slurry and diluted as I went along. I really enjoyed the shaves off both. No pulling and a very smooth shave. I did a writeup that's buried somewhere on SRP...

Anyway, I think the shave off my BBW is probably something like the shave off a synthetic 6k to 8k, but a bit smoother.

I've never shaved off of an edge finished on a bbw but I used to use one with slurry before the yellow coticule. Still do sometimes while other times, when using a coticule, I might do light to medium slurry on the yellow diluting to clear water as I go.

IIRC Bart wrote that he found that going to the yellow after sharpening on the bbw sometimes made the edge feel like it was falling off in sharpness a bit. IIRC he said that the yellow was adding smoothness that made the difference in feeling. Going back to the bbw would add sharpness. Something like that. May be in the SRP Wiki where he wrote about coticule honing. :thinking:

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Originally Posted by Memorael

so I was very unfortunate and put a ding on my only puma razor and 24/7 workhorse... I know, I love that puma so much that I only use it completely ignoring my other razors. Anyway so I dinged it and the ding is so small I figured o well... I'll just remove it with a combo coti I have for kicks and two days later working the BBW side the ding is almost gone. So I decided to see what the shave off the BBW was like and jeez... I have to say this even though I don't want to, but the edge is nicer than the coticule side... Anyone seen this or experienced this before?
The next set of questions is anyone have any hard proof that the BBW side is inferior in grit size to the coticule side? and why is it purple? could it be that the color of the stone is irrelevant and each slab has to be treated independently? kinda like the layers of the coticules where some have better characteristics for razors than others? This is nuts... I thought I had my HAD under control but the beast is fighting pretty hard right now.:aargh:

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After watching Bart's short video about honing with a CrOx slurry on a BBW, I tried it using .3 micron Super CeOx and got good results. I diluted until I was down to clear water. Shaved quite well. As I recall, it was a 6/8 Geneva blade..........

I only tried it one time so this is not an extensive test result. We might call it a one-hit wonder.........:dropjaw:

Well I tried this again and the results are the same, the progression if anyone is interested in trying it is slurry on BBW until only water is left. Then Coti side until the sound it makes stops being as scratchy as it is initially then flip over and finish on BBW by this time it should feel like glass with little or no scratchy noise. Have fun guys, I have a feeling BBW are going to become really popular.

I tought I was crazy, but I get the same impression when I hone with a BBW, compared to a yellow coti. The BBW seems to hone smoother, and cut less than the coti, and when you go back to the BBW, after the coti, then you can actually feel a bit of roughness for the first few strokes before is smooths out on the BBW...

I have not shaved off the BBW only, but it certainly feels like it could give a great shave, I'll have to try it out!

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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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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

What are you guys stropping with?

I suspect that the most important part here
is that the bevel is well set and then the
light touch honing finishes things.

Garnets in BBW are fragile enough to get knocked
down almost flat where they then cut as if
they were a lot finer then measurements might
indicate.

This is the magic of naturals.

As for slurry try half a pea size dot of
white tooth paste and dilute that down
bit by bit. Works wonders on barber hones.

I only have a yellow coticule, but have read about the BBWs at the Belgian site coticule.be. Yellows have lots of small garnets and BBW have fewer and larger garnets.

All these garnets are nearly spherical, and given equal pressure the smaller ones can cut deeper into steel than can the larger ones because they're sharper little points. So the hone with smaller particles is actually a faster hone.

But, in the slurry, there's a different dynamic that makes the hone with the larger particles give a sharper edge. As you push your razor along through the slurry, some garnets are pinned between the steel and the hone and they abrade. However, you're also pushing your razor through a pudding filled with suspended abrasive particles and they're dinging off the honed edge. Imagine driving a gravel road behind someone with big knobby gravel-throwing tires, and you HAVE to follow 20 feet behind him. Your hood's going to get shredded.

The yellow stone, even though its garnets are smaller, puts way more of them into the slurry and they limit how keen an edge you can get because they keep banging against it. The blue stone's slurry doesn't have as many garnets suspended, so fewer of them bang into your honed edge. So it gets keener than you can get it in yellow slurry, because your abrasion-to-collision ratio is more favorable.

However, that keen edge won't be as smooth as you can get it with the yellow stone's smaller garnets.

So set a bevel in yellow slurry, hone a keen edge in blue slurry, then polish your edge back on the wet, slurry-free yellow stone.

That's almost as long as the primary source, which you can read at the coticule site. Click the Information Mine link, then pull down to FAQ, then read the first link ("How does a Belgian Blue Whetstone compare to a Coticule..."). The webmaster, Bart, has lots of great stuff there. He posts here on SRP too.

So many Becauses and Howevers and counterintuitives...These damn things are as complex and fascinating as girlfriends! I'm gonna have to get another. Hone. Don't tell the wife.

@ deighaingeal

The BBWs are not used for building, they are too soft. It is the rocks between the veins that are used for building. The veins are not more that 10% of the rock and of that 10% only 10% can be used for hones.

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Originally Posted by Kees

@ deighaingeal

The BBWs are not used for building, they are too soft. It is the rocks between the veins that are used for building. The veins are not more that 10% of the rock and of that 10% only 10% can be used for hones.

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That is why I specified blue rock, not BBW. It is also why I specified that they avoided the veins for the fact that they were weaker.

-G