Thread: First coticule success: half-strokes, circles and a lot of louping

Over two years ago, I bought me an ERN The Crown and Sword Razor and coticule. The razor is still my most beautiful shaving article, but I got rid of the coti after half a year of successive failures. Then, months later, I spied a vintage coticule at a flee market, begging me to take it home, flatten it, try it, fail, and put it away. Until a few weeks ago when I couldn't resist and gave it another try, though with a completely different approach.

I used to try the ubiquitous slurry dilution, finish with water and then meet disappointment. I tried raising a microbevel and met with a smaller disappointment, but still a one. This time, I did what helped me understand my Shapton Glass Stones, and that is look:

I raised a pretty thick slurry (with a Chinese natural hone, as I have no slurry stone and don't want to use my DMT8C) and started with improving the bevel I had set on my 1K Shapton GS. I used medium pressure and half-strokes. Soon enough, I could see with my 7x loupe that the scratches looked different, but were still quite deep.
With a few drops of water and a little less pressure, I made circles until I couldn't see the scratches anymore. TPT confirmed that the edge was improving. The toe fell behind a little, so I gave it extra attention until the whole bevel looked even.
Again, a few drops of water, but keeping the pressure the same, I moved back to half-strokes until there were even scratches again. The bevel looked more polished than at the beginning.
Some water, circles until the even scratches disappeared, some water, half-strokes until even scratches were back, repeat until I was out of slurry.
Then I finished with 50 x-strokes on water, stropped, was a little disappointed by the HHT (I know, I know, but I calibrated mine). So I added a layer of tape, did another 50 x-strokes, had a jaw-dropping HHT and similar shave. I'll keep on trying until I can do without the tape, I know I'm close.


I'd love to hear from other people trying this alternation of circles and half-strokes/x-strokes (whichever holds your fancy, I chose half-strokes). If I reminisce correctly, my previous coticule gave hazy bevels rather than scratchy ones, so I'm wondering if others can get a similar result off theirs.

I think it's basically what Lynn does in some of his movies, only now I understand why. It helped me understand my Shaptons, because for them, the same circle/half-stroke alternation works miracles to see if I removed the scratches of the previous hone.

Perseverance has its rewards. I've had a couple of coticules that I had good luck with and some not so good. I have a half dozen left, and of those, a couple have proved to be great. One is from Ardennes, a kosher 2x8 I bought right after they started marketing them maybe 6 years ago. I thought it was a dud but I kept persevering and eventually learned its secrets. Lot of patience and strokes with that one.

I have a vintage coticule that came in a cardboard box marked "Genuine Belgian Razor Hone. It is the color of bone china, on the one side. A natural, I've never tried the blue. It is fast and fine. I had let it go a year or so ago but the buyer sold it someone who ended up selling it back to me. I have some other vintage ones that have been hit and miss. I'm convinced that it is me, not them, they all came from pro barber's estates. Every now and again, like you, I trot one out and give it a go. Glad you posted the stellar results.

When you did the last 50 with tape, you progressively created, and then eliminated, a microbevel as the tape wore down.

Your way worked so I am NOT criticizing it, but you might want to try the same approach with only taping at the end with only 5 to 10 very light strokes. The tape puts all of the cutting at the very edge rather than the entire bevel so it takes very little to create that microbevel.

Originally Posted by Utopian

When you did the last 50 with tape, you progressively created, and then eliminated, a microbevel as the tape wore down.

Your way worked so I am NOT criticizing it, but you might want to try the same approach with only taping at the end with only 5 to 10 very light strokes. The tape puts all of the cutting at the very edge rather than the entire bevel so it takes very little to create that microbevel.

Thanks, I'll try that today, since it wasn't quite as sharp as I would have it. Does tape really wear that quickly on a coticule with water?

Tape is softer than steel.
You get two simultaneous issues.
1. The tape wears slightly, causing the edge to lift from the hone and rounding over the shoulder of the bevel, but because this is gradual the cutting travels slightly away from the edge.

2. The number of strokes compounds, or causes, the above.

I'm not describing this well. Just do 3 to 5 strokes at first with fresh tape and see how that works.

Follow up correction. Before applying tape to make another attempt at the microbevel, you need to restore the original untaped bevel. Probably 20-30 strokes are sufficient but it depends on how much pressure you used with the tape. It would not hurt to do 50 strokes. Magnified observation of the bevel would be helpful here.

I tried a 10-stroke microbevel on another razor, but it wasn't quite there yet. I'll experiment some more over the next days or weeks.