Thread: Coticule help - have an edge, but can't get it sharp

Originally Posted by prodigy

my personal experience with coticules is that they are so highly over rated as a finishing stone its down right disheartening. There are some stones out there i suppose that do a superb job, but of the 6 or so ive tried, and the razors ive sent out for professional honing on a coti, ive never been impressed. Theres a mystical code that needs to be discovered and cracked, and its different for every stone. the shaves are smooth but on my facial hair its tug central. My advice is sell it and get a known quality jnat. they are superior in every way to any coticule. check japanese-whetstones.com.

Coticules rule, It's that simple,,,, Excalibur was honed with a coticule

Originally Posted by Hirlau

Coticules rule, It's that simple,,,, Excalibur was honed with a coticule

I doubt that I will ever take advantage of Lynn's free first honing on my new Boker, but if I ever do there will be a note to him requesting that the razor be honed on his coticule. All these years of shaving with a coticule finish edge is why I hate my shavette and safety razors.

Originally Posted by Benz

I doubt that I will ever take advantage of Lynn's free first honing on my new Boker, but if I ever do there will be a note to him requesting that the razor be honed on his coticule. All these years of shaving with a coticule finish edge is why I hate my shavette and safety razors.

This.

After shaving with a coticule edge for nearly a year now, I'll never go to a synthetic. The edges I am getting are so good to my skin, that the harshness of a synthetic has no appeal to me.

Originally Posted by Hirlau

Coticules rule, It's that simple,,,, Excalibur was honed with a coticule

You're sure it wasn't a Welsh slate...? Lynn Melynllyn perhaps?

Try honing under slow running water. No slurry or anything. My Coti became a new stone when I tried that. From what I understand, before the 50's or 60's Coti's were never sold with a slurry stone.
any way it's working for me. Did you flatten your stone before using it?

Slawman

Slawman is right. I'm still new with coticules, but I have had a lot more great results with just running water then with slurry's

Off the wall question, but I always thought the slurry was for the "between phases" to make it behave like a lower grit hone, and you wanted to dilute it until the final phase where you end with just a little water on the hone - or perhaps running water if that's an option. I can see where that would be beneficial. Is that not the case?

Yes, it is very much the case. The slurry works by using loose garnets moving between the blade and the stone akin to lapping paste. The steel is removed relatively rapidly in this method. As the slurry is diluted, the number and density of garnets is reduced accordingly and cutting is slowed. With water only, you are only cutting with the very tops of garnets that remain embedded in the stone. Because the exposed part of the garnets is more rounded in appearance than spiky, they produce a very smooth edge, are much less prone to microchipping, and make overhoning more difficult if not impossible. However, this same structure also means that they don't produce acute microserrations that other hones (especially synthetics) do and are perhaps less forgiving of less keenness.

See the following for more information:

http://coticule.be/dilucot-honing-method.html

http://coticule.be/faq-reader/items/...garnets41.html

http://bosq.home.xs4all.nl/info%2020...whetstones.pdf

See pages 14 - 17 of the latter.

As far as using water only, that's what you should be doing when finishing - you will never get a satisfactory shave off slurry. You do not need to use running water, just keep the water on the surface refreshed as needed to prevent drying out. Some coticule veins tend to self-slurry when honing with water, and the water will require constant refreshing with these types. See this document for detailed descriptions of the different veins, how they behave with water vs. slurry, and much more:

http://bosq.home.xs4all.nl/info%2020...whetstones.pdf