Coticule Repair

I just finished repairing a broken coticule and thought I would post some pictures of the process. The hone came from a gentleman who had it tucked away in a drawer of tools, broken long ago. I originally intended to use the pieces as slurry stones but kept thinking what a shame so I decided to attempt a repair. The hone was very dirty and the broken surfaces were in no shape to simply glue back together. I clamped the pieces together and established a new clean mating surface using a DMT diamond plate. Lapping both pieces together ensures that they will match well. You can't see in the pictures but I made sure to completely lap the joining surfaces before gluing. I used a mixture of hide glue and beeswax to glue them together, I'm not sure of the ratio but it was more glue than wax and seemed to work well. I chose the hide glue/beeswax because I wanted a softer glue joint thinking it might be better to avoid edge damage as a result of the glue. I'm not sure if it was a good idea but I'll find out soon when I use it. After the pieces were glued together, the bottom surface was lapped and then epoxied to a piece of 3/16" acrylic. I then trimmed the excess plastic on a bandsaw and sanded the sides smooth on a belt sander. To finish, I lapped the surface and I'm happy to have given this hone a new life, I just hope it turns out to be a good one!

-Matt
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Once, in a conversation with the main hone guy at Japan Woodworker, he told me he had glued broken hones back together. He mentioned Gorilla Glue IIRC. One way of the other, it has been done. Nice job and I hope it works well for you.

Nicely done!
Newer tried hide glue and beeswax, I used epoxi on jnats and that works well, as does super glue for cracks or flakes!

Update...I finished two razors on the hone and I think it's a good one, still have to shave test. If I ever do a similar repair in the future I would probably use epoxy or the Gorilla glue that Jimmy mentioned. The hide glue/beeswax softened too much with water and I could slightly feel the edge of the crack. I ended up scratching the crack with a razor to open it up by a small amount and then filled with superglue. The crack is not as invisible as before but it's a smoother surface.

That's ingenious the way you clamped those together to get the correct plane for gluing. I :thinking: my head a few times until it clicked. :D I used to have thought processes like that.....but, these days, I just try to get the right end of the toothbrush in my mouth! :) Anyway, very clever!! Thanks for posting it!!

Best Regards,

Howard :)