Thread: Coticule driving me to drink!

Originally Posted by brightred

marshal, i am not a coticule expert and i really don't mean to discourage you, but: i have about 15 coticules, old an new, natural combos and glued ones, some from specific veins, some from abandoned mines. some of them ruin a decent edge before the blade touches the stone, with or without slurry. some of them produce mediocre edges. and only two or three may be called finishers, at least in my book.

and no, i don't take the "all coticules are great, you just have to use them the right way" as gospel. i love these stones for their variety, each one is a surprise packet. but i think coticules are like most other natural stones, there are good ones and bad ones. of course i might be wrong. however, there hasn't been an edge finished on a not so brilliant coticule that i wasn't able to improve significantly on a nice japanese stone.

regards,
hans

^ This. 8k to water is a great place to start.

I'd even suggest 1k to coticule with water if you want something to play with, the shave is surprisingly good. We had members over at the coticule club give it a go with positive results. Maybe try finishing with stropping strokes on the stone.

I would also really like to point out that setting a bevel not with a slurried coticule will help you a lot. The bevel you get from slurry and a coticule is way more rounded than a crisp clean one off a synthetic 1k or Arkansas since I know you like those. Starting with a crisp bevel leaps you forward on your coticule honing journey making obtaining shave ready much closer. Be wary of false positives too.

Let us know if anything changes. I am certain we will figure it out.

If you want to test a finisher and are not 100% confident in the razor and/or your honing, I'd suggest the following.

Do whatever honing you do up through the 8k. Shave test. It should be a shave you're very happy with. If not, try again. Continue as needed. Then, later, do whatever you think you're supposed to do on the finisher. Shave test again.

Originally Posted by brightred

marshal, i am not a coticule expert and i really don't mean to discourage you, but: i have about 15 coticules, old an new, natural combos and glued ones, some from specific veins, some from abandoned mines. some of them ruin a decent edge before the blade touches the stone, with or without slurry. some of them produce mediocre edges. and only two or three may be called finishers, at least in my book.

and no, i don't take the "all coticules are great, you just have to use them the right way" as gospel. i love these stones for their variety, each one is a surprise packet. but i think coticules are like most other natural stones, there are good ones and bad ones. of course i might be wrong. however, there hasn't been an edge finished on a not so brilliant coticule that i wasn't able to improve significantly on a nice japanese stone.

regards,
hans

Well, I was under the impression that, while relatively few are in excess of 8k, enough of them are at/around 8K and that generally makes them passable finishers. At least more hits than misses in terms of getting a close/clean/comfortable shave. Maybe not the sharpest thing you'll run into, but certainly passable, and (hopefully) one of the most comfortable edges you can get.

With regard to JimmyHAD and Solitarysoldier's posts, perhaps using coticule slurry atop a coticule has rounded the edge more than I anticipated? Which is to say more strokes on plain water may get me where I want to be...

It is correct that I like Arkies, and one of my favorite tricks for setting a bevel on them: Coticule slurry on a soft Arkansas. The last time I honed up the Torrey straight I also put a new Arkansas edge on my favorite Germania Cutlery Works razor. Starting with coticule slurry on a soft ark, diluted to a misty slurry, then flipped it over and did 50 more passes on the 'clean' side that I don't slurry. 50 on a hard ark, then 50 on a very faint Dragon's tongue slurry on the back/'coarse' side of my translucent, 50 pure water on that side after washing the slurry off, then 100 each water & shave lather. Usually the Dragon's tongue slurry isn't necessary but I came off the Hard a little early. Rather than going back to the Hard Ark, I decided to experiment.

Anyway, that edge came out great. I could maybe see that the soft Arkie and the Hard trued the edge up before it moved onto the Translucent for the final phase. But I do the exact same thing with my PHIG. Bevel set on coticule slurry, dilute it to (almost) pure water. Make a misty slurry with the PHIG rubbing stone, do about 100 strokes, then another 100 pure water all on the backside (the side I leave a little rough for slurry work and 'fast' cutting). Then flip to the burnished side for pure water/shave lather, 50-100 strokes each.

Could be that I'm moving too fast off the coticule slurry since I don't have that fine barely-constitutes-a-slurry phase to tie in coticule slurry and pure water like I do with anything else. Or that more time needs to be spent at the pure water phase as the tie-in. But I need a few days for beard fuzz to grow out first. I'll probably get the Norton phase of the honing done tonight since that's quick and easy, but won't have a good enough beard growth to give a decent test until tomorrow or Friday evening. Then I'll be able to say for sure if it's a finisher.

If my test edge comes off the Norton 8K good, I'm thinking I'll sit down with the coticule and give it a few hundred laps. 2, maybe 3. See when I get bored with it or the edge stops improving. Pure water, no slurry. Might even wash it off every now and again to keep the auto-slurry from skewing things. Eliminate every possible variable save for water and the coticule and see what we get - just like holli4pirating said while I was busy writing a book to layout a one paragraph course of action.

I would steer clear of the slurry on a new to you coticule. Take the good advice offered earlier and take the edge to a good 8k finish, then go to straight water on the coticule. If your first try is a fail, take the finish on the coticule up higher and try again.

I have one coti that I polish up to almost a mirror like an Ark and it gives really great edges this way. If I try a slurry, even a light one and dilute to straight water it's a crap edge every time.

As far as the auto-slurrying and your worries that the stone is too soft - the higher you take the polish, the less it will auto-slurry as long as you don't use too much pressure.

Marshall, I think you've already got the right strategy mapped out. Hone again on the Norton 4k and then 8k and then shave. After you have established that you have an adequate shaver off the 8k, I would suggest that you do 25 to 50 strokes on the coticule and then strop and shave the next day. Repeat another 25-50 and strop and shave. Keep going till you sort out improvement or degradation of the edge.

I have to confess that I never have used lather on a coticule. I've certainly used it on synthetic barber hones, but I've never considered it on coticules.

Edit: Oops, I just wrote what Holli wrote and realize now that I contributed nothing! Oh well, I will leave it for an indication of endorsement of his opinion.

I think the results of tonight's tinkering should be good. First thing I set about doing was burnishing the coticule a little better - just so I can say it was done. It was already lapped flat with a worn EZE Lap diamond plate, then polished up to 1K. I figured that would be good enough for a coticule at the time what with the auto slurry and what not. It's had a pair of coticule rubbing stones used on it, and of course razors, but that was the end of the treatment until now.

In deference to the fact that it's already been scrubbed several times over with a piece of coticule, I chose to rub it a little more with my ZY Razor hone this time. Reason being that I can't hurt the burnish of the surface of the ZY with coticule, it can only help - and it performs at the Norton 8K level, so it can only help the coticule. I scrubbed them together lightly until they weren't getting any stickier, and even scrubbed a few laps while pulling them away from one another to get less than the weight of the hone pressure working for me. Then I gave each 300 laps with my burnishing wrench.

As for the test blades, the Torrey and GCW both got attention on the Norton 1K for starters. The Torrey just enough medium and light honing to cover the bases. The GCW needed some work at the heel to be fully set. They were both honed up on the 4k and 8K, and should be ready for a good stropping and test pass.





Pitchers, cause we all like those. I was trying to get a nice close up of the coticule, but my phone just ceased cooperating. Might try again once it updates, this stone does have some neat patterning. Probably the prettiest one I have, so if it does turn out to be a paperweight maybe it wouldn't be a total loss.

I have to confess that I have limited faith in the ability to burnish a coticule. This is because almost all of them auto-slurry. I base that on a test I did with about 30 of mine several years ago. I rinsed and wiped off each hone, added water, honed 50 strokes, collected the water and checked it under a microscope. Only one of them did not auto-slurry at all, based on my experimental set-up.

The point is, if the hones are able to auto-slurry, then at least to some extent they continually are able to reveal fresh honing particles. In the case of coticules those particles are garnets.

Marshall, when you did your wrench burnishing, did you see any slurry produced?

I'm inclined to agree, I don't expect much if any improvement to the coticule for the exact reasons you stated.

It's hard to say what I saw, whether it was wrench or coticule slurry. I think it best described as black mud. It's probably safe to say based on sheer volume that it couldn't have all been steel from the wrench, otherwise I'd have a divot worn into the wrench and not just a little polishing on the surface.

I figure best case scenario - it has a positive effect and makes the rock cut finer. Worst case scenario - I polished my burnishing wrench a little better for the next hone or 3/4" nut that it sees.

Well, you do need to remember you aren't working with a super hard stone here. I've done this plenty of times with coticules, and I can tell you that it does work with the right stones. Of course every stone is different and YMMV, but softer stones usually won't take a burnish the same way as an Ark, which are harder than a coffin nail.

As I mentioned in my last post - you need to stay away from pressure to burnish a softer stone. Using heavy pressure is pretty much akin to using the coticule rub stone - you will be removing whole garnets, leaving sharp edges exposed. While this may help compared to a straight from the diamond plate lapping job, it won't get you where you want to be.

What you want to do is polish the stone with an abrasive that's harder than the garnet - like SiC wet/dry. Take it up to 3k or so - and do not use heavy pressure. You don't need to remove every scratch, just polish it up a bit. You can run some steel over it if you like - but use a razor, and use little more than weight of the razor pressure. This will get your smoothing effect where you need it most - where a razor makes contact when you are honing.

If your stone still auto slurries after this, you can also use the honing under running water trick, and keep the stone wiped clean of any swarf that appears every 10 or 20 laps. (Any swarf will also be accompanied by loose abrasive particles).

marshal,

i did not pay attention to the fact that you move from a synthetic 8k stone to the coticule, wheras i jump from a synthetic 5k to any of my natural finishers. going from 5k to a coticule and finishing with water only is tiresome, that's why i always use slurry first and then dilute to pure water, just to find out at the end that the results are mixed, from terrible, scratched bevels and dull edges to very good edges. as i know that there are coticules that work perfectly with slurry and just water, the quest continues...

maybe i should get an finer synthetic stone to better understand how natural finishing stones affect the quality of an edge.

anyway, good luck with your new acquisition!

regards,
hans