Thread: Coticule progressively finer finish if never slurried?

Basically was getter finer and finer finishes from one of my coticules when using it with no slurry after naniwa pro 1000 and 3000. Tried slurrying for a dilucot and just couldn't reach as fine a finish anymore. Had thought it was simply my honing improving, now I think maybe the garnets get smoother over time if it's not lapped or slurried? Is there any truth to this, or had I just had one beer too many while honing and lost my touch?

Could e. Honing on just water is a common finish to a Coticule edge. Normally the guys will then finish on a CromOx pasted strop. If you are fortunate enough to have a great Coticule( To your requirements) a few on linen and then on leather will do wondrous things to a blade. Of 15 or so Coticules, I have found about 6 that I like.
~Richard

Originally Posted by Geezer

Could e. Honing on just water is a common finish to a Coticule edge. Normally the guys will then finish on a CromOx pasted strop. If you are fortunate enough to have a great Coticule( To your requirements) a few on linen and then on leather will do wondrous things to a blade. Of 15 or so Coticules, I have found about 6 that I like.
~Richard

I didn't really need to read that as I was thinking about trying one out and if the odds are like that in finding a good one, then I might just pass on the idea as I am not going to buy a bunch of them to find one or two!

The coticule that I have now is pretty aggressive with slurry so what I usually do is work the slurry and dilute it to just water then switch to the bbw side with slurry and dilute that and then just water on the coticule side to finish. I could use just water, but if I need to set the bevel I have to use the slurry. The other coticule that I had wasn't a combo and was able to just dilute to water and be fine. You could try diluting the slurry very slowly or not using as much slurry. Diluting to fast sometimes works like jumping from a low grit to a high grit with nothing in between. Atleast it does on mine. Sounds like the slurry it pretty aggressive on yours. Since you are going to the coticule after 3k might not need much slurry if any to put the final touches on your edge. Good luck.

Originally Posted by dmnc

maybe the garnets get smoother over time if it's not lapped or slurried?

Nope. The individual garnets are harder than steel, so you're not affecting their size or geometry. You're just not exposing new garnets at anything like the rate you would if you were lapping the stone. The garnets in your current surface are the ones that protrude only slightly from the matrix and present a less abrasive profile to your blade; the more-exposed ones are more aggressive but get knocked off the stone pretty fast.

Originally Posted by dmnc

now I think maybe the garnets get smoother over time if it's not lapped or slurried?

To add to Ecl's comment..

Here's an old school technique to "prep" a coti, to wit.. I use the side of an old Chinese knife - the kind that looks like a cleaver - and work the stone with heavy pressure for a few dozen laps (with water). Consider, the garnets are aligned every which way and as Ecl stated, some stick up higher than others and some have tiny corners or edges "facing up". Working the stone with the steel knocks off the higher ones and may break or dull those edges/corners where the pressure is very high due to the very small contact area. The prepped stone is then used for finishing only.

The result is a much slower stone that can deliver a finer, keener edge. I just prepped a new coticule last week, testing it before and after, and found that it now needs more than twice the work to max out the edge. The nice thing about prepping a stone this way is that if you find it too slow or the edge produced is not to your liking, a quick rubdown with a slurry stone or a couple of figure eights with a DMT will restore the original, faster surface .


rs,
Tack

It’s a natural stone, they are all “different”, which is why we tell guys new to naturals, you have to learn your stones. No-one can tell you how to max out the potential of YOUR stone, because we don’t have your, stone.

There are a lot of good suggestions given, here and the hundreds of coticule threads, try them all. Honing on slurry is in itself, an art form.

And if you keep honing… 2 years from now, you’ll pick up the same stone and say “wow, dude… this stone works great… with a heavy slurry”.

Part of it is the stone, a large part, is the honer…

Originally Posted by Euclid440

And if you keep honing… 2 years from now, you’ll pick up the same stone and say “wow, dude… this stone works great… with a heavy slurry”.

Part of it is the stone, a large part, is the honer…

As Barney would say, true story: Although I have long been partial to coticules I was using mostly synthetics until five or six years ago when I went heavily into jnats. Boy did I fall down that rabbit hole! I had a very nice Kouzaki that produced only a mediocre edge and since it was only a Lv 4.5 I just had to have something harder.. and another and.. well, you know. A couple of years passed and I was getting very nice edges as I had found the "right" stone. I happened to think of the Kouzaki that hadn't been wet for years and on a whim decided to give the poor thing another try before selling it. You guessed it, I got one of my best edges ever on the first try. It seems that it had improved considerably in storage.

To paraphrase what gssixgun and Euclid have said many times..

It's not the hone in the hand; it's the hand holding the hone.


rs,
Tack