Thread: Coticule help please

By the way, as others have said, that stone does indeed look like a La Grise. Your description of how it behaves would confirm that.
La Grise's are slow cutters: with a fast cutter the slurry would turn black soon, with the La Grise I used, the slurry never turned black but remained grey. By the way, when finishing on my La Grise (it auto-slurries as well), I rinse the stone a lot so there's no slurry at all on the stone

I have been honing my razors for about three years and here is what i have noticed and learned:

I learned on the norton set with a DMT flatener and progressed to the Shaptons, throwing in a few super stones and the such. I think I have mastered the synthetics for the most part. I continue to learn every time I hone but it is much easier to get an edge on the man made hones first because they are so consistent. I have sense gotten many natural stones and have found the learning is different in that they are all different. The etcher stones seem to be more consistant than the other naturals but still; every one slurries different and that tells me that they aren't the same.

With the coticules I find there is more differences in the yellow side than the BBW side. I have five coties and they seem all different in one way or another on the yellow side.

The way it sounds is that you have a system that seems to work for you, so you can play all you want and still go back to the tried and true if you have too.

Like Lynn says at the end of all his posts..."have fun"
Stingray

Thanks for all the help guys, a lot of great advice. I just shaved with my Dovo last night, after taking Gary's advice and trying to finish with a unicot edge after my dilucot, with 2 pieces of electrical tape. I was still getting same HHT results, only mostly violin with occasionally grabbing and popping on some spots pre-strop. I didn't try the HHT after stropping. The shave was definitely good -- I find that with the MWF I've been shaving with, the key is to just lather small parts of my face at a time, because my stroke is still kind of new and slow, and the Mitchell's dries out so fast. It makes a world of difference with the feel and closeness of the shave if I hit the sweet spot with the lather. Gonna try to hone the Melchior Brothers razor tonight, and experiment and see what kind of edge I get. My thumb pad tests are feeling much better just in the past few days.

Oh -- and I do notice that when finishing on water, my stone will indeed auto-slurry if I use enough pressure and pull enough of an angle with my x-strokes. I noticed that last night with the unicot, when I saw a little white residue on the electrical tape and looked closer at the water.

Hey, John.
'Glad you're getting good help here. I've done a little over 120 blades on 3 diff cotis, and only once or twice equaled the edges from the jnat or thuri. I could get shaveable edges every time, but only one or two that lit my face up w/ a big smile.

On the HHT. I'm w/ the guy that spoke of not getting HHT response from Glen's edges. Two reasons - both of which amount to not knowing what I was doing very well. Some hair will not work w/ HHT. Hair varies *ALOT*. My head hair averages (7 samples measured) at .0018". Chest hair avgs .0033". You're smart for recognizing the limiation of the HHT - but you may find ways to make it useful/helpful.

In my case, I suspect flaw(s) in my stroke but that doesn't square w/ the results from the thuri & jnat. One thing I did try on multiple naturals is doing last light finishing strokes in a spine-leading/stropping stroke direction. It made a difference in both sharpness and smoothness. Maybe it'll help. If it doesn't - don't continue. You already have shaveable edges, so you've nothing to lose by try lots of variations. Don't forget Lynn did a vid recently on coticule honing. His method is fast and efficient - mostly circles.

Every time I read of someone struggling w/ a coti, I'm ready to sing harmony. They were a bugger for me.

Jimmy's response is spot on & worth re-reading.

Your stone is auto-slurring, so I see no need in building a slurry before you start honing. When I was giving the coti my all, I learned about "slurry-dull". I still have a coti somewhere, but it surely has dust on it.

In closing, you will hardly ever hear an experienced honer recommend a coti or any other natural to learn honing as they ALL have a personality of their own. If they do, I would question their expertise. The normal recommendation from most of us is this: Once a baseline of knowledge of honing is gained off the synthetics, then work the naturals into the mix. I personally love natural stones, but most of my honing is still done on synthetics & only finished on a natural. WHen I was learning to hone I kept a razor honed by a pro so that I could compare the shave. Once I thought I was doing pretty good, I did some razor swapping and simply sent out razors to be evaluated by some that I knew had experience.

Enjoy the ride & as Lynn says...have fun!!

I agree with the above that a natural is not the best way to start, there is 3 variables in the honing equation, the hone, the razor and you!
If you can get it down to just 1 variable, you, then it will be much easier.

When I wanted to learn honing the first time, I listen to guys here advise me to start learning with norton 4k/8k,
I held on the temptation to buy naturals. And I'm glad that I been learning so much that way, after I passed the norton then I start trying chinese, then coti & thuringian . Listen & learn from folks that have experiences makes things easier for me

btw, from my experience the unicot does HHT better

Originally Posted by sigit666

When I wanted to learn honing the first time, I listen to guys here advise me to start learning with norton 4k/8k,
I held on the temptation to buy naturals. And I'm glad that I been learning so much that way, after I passed the norton then I start trying chinese, then coti & thuringian . Listen & learn from folks that have experiences makes things easier for me

btw, from my experience the unicot does HHT better

I would advise doing a unicot, pretty much down to the letter as it is explained here. It's pretty much a fool-proof method, depending on what condition your edge was in to begin with. If it's not convexed or microchipped it should work just like that.

It's not very difficult. Unicot is actually quite simple, and gives you good results pretty much every time. It'll also give you a sharper edge than dilucot, because of the increased bevel angle causing the abrasion to work at a slightly higher angle at the very 'edge of the edge'.

This one is not mine but it is exactly the way it is for me: I have never had a good shave with a razor that didn't measure out on my HHT after finishing. Ever. Even more: I have found that if it doesn't, it will most likely hardly cut anything at all.

I put a unicot edge on my Dovo over a week ago, and did not get a great HHT, but I shaved a couple times with that edge and did enjoy the shave. I've actually had pretty decent shaves with all the edges I've had as of late, but still not the kind of keen edges I'm sure most of you are used to. Definitely good close shaves with 3 passes though. I think it's my particular coti that is a real challenge. I've got one of my best edges yet on my carbon steel razor, using the ellipticot method. I think I'm going to keep that edge on there for a while and shave with it -- sending my Dovo off through coticule.be to get a professional coticule edge on it, so I at least have a known variable to compare to. I'll keep all you folks updated, of course.