Thread: Cleaning My Coticule?

About 99% of my usage with the Coticule is polishing with just water to fine tune my edges. It seems to workk very well for me. The last couple of days I've worked on about four razors. I noticed some discoloration on the stone on the right side where the heel of the razor passes. The last two razors felt very gritty over that area. I thought it was the razor, until I experimented with one with a good edge, and it was gritty in that area, also. SH T!! I tried a 3M scour pad with not much change. I then took a 1K Japanese waterstone and did a few figure 8s under the water in the sink. That was better, but still real not good. Reluctantly, I tried my 1200 DMT, 6x2, doing just a few figure 8s gently, and that pretty much cleaned the surface.

Oh, gee........! I hope I have not screwed my beautiful Coticule up! It seems back to normal now, - hopefully!

What is the drill? Do I need to clean this stone after each session with a blade? - and what is the proceedure?

Thanks,

Steve

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.

I have never experienced what you have described in the coticule getting rough and dirty and I have honed over 50 razors on my yellows. Coticules do not need to be cleaned because the surface does not load like a Norton or Arkansas stone. The slurry is what does the cutting/polishing of the metal and the slurry is refreshed as the razor is being honed. If you did somehow get the stone dirty with particles of some type I would recommend first trying to start a slurry with a cotigura stone and see if you can get past the dirt. If this does not work I would recommend doing exactly what you did in taking the DMT diamond stone to the coticule. You definately did not damage the stone, as the Belgians recommend using DMT stones to lap the Belgian stones. Have fun.

Originally Posted by heavydutysg135

I have never experienced what you have described in the coticule getting rough and dirty and I have honed over 50 razors on my yellows. Coticules do not need to be cleaned because the surface does not load like a Norton or Arkansas stone. The slurry is what does the cutting/polishing of the metal and the slurry is refreshed as the razor is being honed. If you did somehow get the stone dirty with particles of some type I would recommend first trying to start a slurry with a cotigura stone and see if you can get past the dirt. If this does not work I would recommend doing exactly what you did in taking the DMT diamond stone to the coticule. You definately did not damage the stone, as the Belgians recommend using DMT stones to lap the Belgian stones. Have fun.

You know, I got to thinking (which gets me in trouble sometimes), I have gotten in the habit of not using slurry for tune ups. Have I been reading Josh Earl too much? Going from razor to razor with no slurry has got to be the problem.

I will do slurry every time and then finish with the water only. That makes more sense to me now.

Steve

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

The coticules, like the Japanese, Eschers, or Thuringen stones, are natural products. It's not unusual to find some variation in the stone and 99% of the time it's just cosmetic. If it's a little gritty just gently do some swirls on the DMT Extra Fine under running water and that should get past that thin layer. If you ever want to see real variation in a stone, try the Japanese stones. My awase stone has hard spots, soft spots, veins, fissures, etc. The back of the stone has the chisel marks where the stone was cut out of the base rock. It's gnarly! The Japanese consider this to be normal and tell you to get to know your stone so you can use different parts for different purposes.