Thread: Honing question (newbie)

So I've recently gotten a couple stones and delved into honing. What I have is a coticule and a Zulu grey. So far, I've done two of my razors on the coticule with the unicot method, and both have given me amazingly comfortable BBS shaves with minor irritation.

With my Zulu, I've taken one of those razors that I did on the coticule, and tried it out. I used a very light (cloudy water) slurry, slowing diluting to clear weather on the Zulu, and now the razor seems to be pulling and not giving a very close shave. With the slurry, I did about 20 laps at a time, then diluted about 2-3 drops of water until clear...so probably 80 laps or so. Then I rinsed the Zulu and used just clear water for probably 50 more.

I also looked at the edges after the coticule to after the Zulu, and didn't really notice much difference. If anything, it looks like the Zulu May have degraded the edge a bit. It looks a little less smooth on the bevel, and the edge looks slightly serrated. This is at 100x magnification.

Any ideas what I could be doing wrong with the Zulu? Slurry problem, etc.? Should I instead of using slurry be using clear water only?

Thanks

I forgot to note that I've been using a Zulu slurry stone to generate the slurry...it's a lot of work, but I couldn't bring myself to using the little DMT card on it yet...unless it sounds like that is necessary.

I've done 4 razors of different grinds on a Zulu,,a couple post coticule,,all were great shaves,,so limited experience;

I don't know why you felt that you needed to slurry the Zulu, under the progression you gave above.
I come off the coticule & use only water to finish on the Zulu. the Zulu is a slow finisher (not as slow as the PHIG, but close). I usually do 80 to 110 laps, one session, on the Zulu to finish,,,cleaning the surface of the Zulu every 20 laps.

Maybe your slurry of the Zulu led to a more agressive cut than what you had when you left the coticule.
Putting your results back,,,

Thanks for the advice there, I was under the impression that I needed to start with slurry on that... I'll probably try to redo the one on the coticule a bit and give that a shot.

If that's the case, when would Zulu slurry be recommended?

Here's my elementary answer to slurry; I only slurry when I want a more aggressive cut on the stone, than what that stone will give me with just water. Before I consider slurry, I first look at my collection & see if there is a stone available that would fit "better" in the honing progression. If so, I use that stone, then continue to the next level.

I thank many people do not have a lot of stones to progress up the honing ladder, so slurry is used to fill up the space in the honing ladder.

Note; Many times I slurry my coticule on the yellow side because I feel that there is a large grit jump between the purple side & the yellow side,,,,then I finish on the coticule with just water.
Just my thoughts,,,

Makes sense. I guess I did it this way because I hear of people using slurry on the Zulu and figured with slurry that it was less aggressive than the coticule with water. Perhaps I was wrong there. With just water the Zulu didn't feel like it was doing anything at all...like sliding the razor on glass.

Probably just my lack of honing experience, but I'll give what you said a shot and see how it goes. Thanks!

Keep in mind this is my thoughts on slurry, I'm not a Slurry Jedi.
If it's sliding across that wet stone, it's cutting.