Quote Originally Posted by Pithor View Post
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The reason It just strikes me that often when someone comes in here asking questions about naturals - often coticules, as they are popular - a standard reply seems to be: "don't bother just yet, buy a Norton 4k/8k, then perhaps a cheap PHIG and a 1k bevel setter." Honing on a coticule is not that insanely difficult, I don't understand why it seems that people need to be almost warned against them, mainly because of their fickleness.
I'm sorry you feel that way.

It seems the Coticulists always gets their pants in a knot whenever their beloved rock is spoken of in less than panegyrical terms.
What you see as a warning, I see as sound advice to help someone get the desired results, a shave ready edge.

A coticule can be a wonderful honing tool, but there are tons of equally good alternatives out there.
Some of those alternatives are also cheaper, more consistent and fully capable of reaching at least the level of finish a Coticule does.

The "romantic", or "cool-dude" factor aside, once learned, a coticule can be a good hone. No more, no less.


Quote Originally Posted by Pithor View Post

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If people feel more comfortable with the apparent consistent, predictable results synthetics provide, I say power to them (honestly, without any sarcasm). If honing razors is part of your job and you hone a lot, I understand the need for consistent and predictable, because you can't shave with every razor you hone. I just don't understand some of the apparent hostility against using a piece of rock that has played a considerable role in the straight shaving tradition and being entusiastic about it in a, I admit, geeky way. But then again, many aspects of this hobby are geeky, without it there would be hardly any straight razor community left.
I'm not avare of any hostility towards the coticule, nor the use of it, on SRP.
What I see is a lot of experienced honers giving their honest opinion about that and other honing systems.
It is hard to see that advice as anything but a desire to help out. To me that is.
The thing is, to many of us, the Coticule is but a rock.
I personally honed 3 razors on a La Dressante au bleu last night, and one of them provided me with a fully acceptable shave this morning.
The same can be said of all the various other hones and honing systems I have and use.
The Coticule is not MY first choice in any of the stages in honing a razor, but I do like the few I have!

Quote Originally Posted by Pithor View Post

Jimbo, you make it sound like I'm in a weird cult. I don't think people who love Eschers are fanatics, or people who love honing on Japanese naturals. That "flock" of that "mythology built upon pseudo-scientific principles" also consists out of many people who couldn't care less about how insanely awesome garnets magically eat away steel like a crystalized version of Pac-man, but for whom it just simply works. Just like people for whom doing a honing pyramid on a Norton 4k/8k just works, who don't care why it works.
Well, I guess to some extent we all belong to a weird cult.
After all, we spend lots of time on an internet forum talking about shaving for crying out loud.

Some of the more pronounced Coticulists does appear to be smitten more than most though