Thread: coticule concerns

are you lapping it? and with what?

I think you are a little paranoid. Honing razors off a 4k will require a slurry as you may be aware, which helps to keep the surface flat. Honing 10 a month = 120 a year. I wouldn't think that would wear it down for a good number of years, however if you wanted to reduce wear, I'd recommend you got an 8k to go to after 4k and then finish on the coticule with plain water after the 8k.

Using an 8k after 4k as opposed to coticule and slurry, should only require 20-30 laps and then anywhere from 30-60 laps using plain water on the coticule, potentially starting with a very light slurry on the coticule for the first 10-20 laps.

I don't think you have to worry about this. If you use it with thick mud like slurry, that's another matter. But finishing them with plain water or oil or lather or whatever you are going to use, it will last for a lifetime. There might actually be still out there coticules quarried by Romans

I like finishing a razor on the coticule off a 4k. I'm not trying to reduce wear so much as get an idea how long this stone will last at that rate. I use a DMT 600 to create a slurry and to lap the stone. But from these responses, it sounds like I shouldn't worry too much about wearing the stone down. It also sounds like I don't need to have a perfectly flat stone to work off off? I like that vacuum feeling when a flat blade gets sucked to a flat stone, that's one of the ways I use to know that I've removed one more variable. Ryan82, if you haven't lapped your stone in 3 years, is it still perfectly flat, or does it not matter to you? I mean I feel like I don't need a perfectly flat stone for a rolling x stroke on smiling blades, but on a straight edge, I feel like it's necessary, even with an x stroke.