Thread: Cleaning My Coticule?

It sounds like you need to support the heel of the blade more when you're honing. That "roughness" may have been bits of wire edge that had broken off and embedded in the hone.

Steve,

If I do a long honing session, I'll sometimes get a little black swarf building up on the edge like you describe--nothing like on the Norton, but just a little. (I also use black electrical tape on the spine, which probably contributes to this.) Usually I just wash the hone under running water and rub it with my hand, and that removes the gunk.

If not, I do exactly what you did--use my DMT (I have a 320-grit for this purpose) to lightly lap the hone. I'll lap every 10 razors or so just to keep the hone nice and flat. (Don't go hog wild--a few circles is enough. No sense wasting a chunk of your expensive rock...) But I use the coticule instead of an 8K Norton, so mine gets more wear than average. If you're just doing a few finishing strokes, you could probably hone dozens of razors before you needed to lap...

Did you use the Belgian blue or another hone prior to going to the yellow stone? If you used a faster hone, mparker could be right about the wire edge. I don't think the blue Belgian would make a wire edge--I haven't had it happen yet, anyway.

Josh

Well, the discoloration was only on the heel edge of the stone, and yellows cut pretty fast if you use pressure. Even using no extra pressure on the blade, if the blade tilts up there's still a *lot* of pressure on that single contact point.

Originally Posted by JoshEarl

Steve,


Did you use the Belgian blue or another hone prior to going to the yellow stone? If you used a faster hone, mparker could be right about the wire edge. I don't think the blue Belgian would make a wire edge--I haven't had it happen yet, anyway.

Josh

I did use it last week when I honed up my Wapi for the 1st time.(my best shaver to date!).

I think I have everything figured out, until the next time. The Coticule is back to perfect now. Just another notch in the belt on my honing curve of learning.

Well, I've got three razors in the bathroom I've been working on, and I'm gonna give 'em a test run.

Happy Trails,

Steve

You never have everything figured out. I have a razor right now that looks like it should shave well, but it doesn't. Not even sure what to try next--that's where experience helps, I guess.

Keep workin' on it,
Josh

Originally Posted by JoshEarl

You never have everything figured out. I have a razor right now that looks like it should shave well, but it doesn't. Not even sure what to try next--that's where experience helps, I guess.

Keep workin' on it,
Josh

Josh,

Actually, I evaluated four razors, and everyone was outstanding. I now have nine razors that are really shave great.

BTW, I just recieved seven in the mail from an Ebay acution that I literally stole: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...1641&rd=1&rd=1 One of those "TAZ" things where the picture was not good. Not only that, none of the blades were shown. They were all closed. Two were NOS, never used and the others were all all really nice. I got them all for $48.00!

Anyway, more razors to do. This will be a great learning experience for me.

Ciao,

Steve