Thread: coticule vs escher

whats the difference between the blue/green (gray!) escher and a yellow/green escher?

Fred

Originally Posted by fredvs79

whats the difference between the blue/green (gray!) escher and a yellow/green escher?

Fred

Um, supposedly better performance and higher dollars?

Honestly, I haven't used too much blue/green to compare

Cheers
Ivo

y/g is softer? is that right?

Originally Posted by edk442

y/g is softer? is that right?

It is my understanding that this is true on average. Most y/g stones should be softer than b/g; however, since these are natural stones there is variation. Some b/g stones will be as soft or softer than some y/g stones.

I know what you mean about liking natural products better. I also know what you mean about the never ending quest for The Perfect Edge. I have a collection of over 400 stones from around the world and have honed on most of them. I have eschers in blue/green and yellow green, japanese stones, Tam O'Shanters, Water of Ayr stones, Eidsborg, Thuringien, and of course a healthy collection of belgians in blue, yellow, and some shades in between.

The garnets in the belgians have a unique property which makes garnet a great abrasive both in sandpaper as well as in stones. It cleaves. It's not that the whole rhombic dodecahedron comes out of the surface but as the steel passes over the crystal, the crystal fractures and produces tiny particles of abrasive in the slurry. The belgian phyllite (colloquially known as "mudstone") is softer than the Escher, Thuringian, or Japanese substrates. That helps to bring fresh, sharp garnet edges to the surface to be cleaved by the steel. The slurry is an abrasive slurry and is akin to the lapping used to fit valve heads to the head in an automobile engine.

Your statement about the relative garnet contents is an interesting one. I haven't seen any studies on it. Was that an opinion or did you actually get some data on that?

Originally Posted by Howard

Your statement about the relative garnet contents is an interesting one. I haven't seen any studies on it. Was that an opinion or did you actually get some data on that?

Take a look at the site of Belgischer Brocken. Some but not all of their info is in English.

Fred I have the same interests in stones. I have just purchased my first coticule and debated a "esher" as well. I am under the impression that the polishing and etching action on the bevel of the coticule is superior to the esher as shown on zowda's site, while the edge remains debatable.

http://www.tzknives.com/razorbevels.html

I am wondering, if a esher is used after the coticule will it wear away the desired etchings on the bevel?

Originally Posted by fredvs79

Hey folks,
I have been pursuing information on natural stones - Japanese stones, Chinese stones, Belgian stones, German stones... I have always been a fan of natural stones. Call me old-fashioned (even though I'm only 28), or maybe just a lover of nature and what she offers, but I prefer something that was dug out of the ground to something created in a factory.

Having said that, aside from my one double-grit barber hone which I started off with, I do own a norton 4k/8k as it is recommended as a very reliable and predictable performer for taking a restored/dull blade off 2000 grit sand paper to near-shaving comfort. I do use it sometimes, but I think one day I may replace it with a Belgian blue. Upon recommendations and raves on this forum, I also invested in a Belgian Coticule, and am quite happy with it so far. It does do a very good job bringing my razors to a comfortable shave level. I was originally under the impression that the Belgian Coticule was the be-all-end-all stone. Even though it was rated as ~8000 grit, it's rhomboid garnets polished the edge of a blade to what some people liken as a 10,000 - 12,000 grit finish.

Most people who have a coticule use it and love it. But I think I've got some sort of sickness, because I'm always wondering if the grass is greener somewhere else. I know there are Chinese 12,000 grit stones to chase the coticule. There are Japanese stones which are rated even higher. There are 15K shaptons, even 30K shaptons, but now we're out of natural stones. There is chromium oxide & pasted paddles, but now we're out of stones... It's hilarious, and my girlfriend doesn't understand my obsession (sometimes, neither do I). Even though my shaves are better than my gillette mach3, even though my soaps smell better than the goo-in-a-can, even though I look forward to shaving now as opposed to skipping a day or three here and there - I'm still in a pursuit of something... And right now it's not about more razors, or a softer brushes, or a sweeter-smelling soaps or aftershaves, it's about a better sharpener.

Now I've been hearing more information, and it seems there is a contender against the Belgian Coticule - the German Escher. The escher (and also Droescher/Thuringens/Boker) hones seem to also use rhomboid garnets to cut the steel like the coticule, but it has been suggested that the density of the garnets is a little greater than the coticule. Since the belgian blue has a lower garnet content than the yellow coticule and is rated as a lower grit, I only assume the escher is rated as higher grit than the coticule if it has a higher density of garnets.

Also, the substrate that the garnets are imbedded in is softer in the coticule I hear. Some people say that softer stones are good for harder steel to prevent microchipping, but I think this is debatable, and Lynn has said that the only steel he had trouble with microchipping was damascus. The slurry (which acts as a lubricant making the blade slide easier to the side across the stone) comes out easier in a softer stone without any kind of dressing from a prep/rubbing stone, and will polish the blade to a very keen edge, but create a cloudy look, instead of a mirror finish. This is because new particles keep emerging from the stone, the particles don't get ground down into smaller size. It also means that the stone needs more care to not have it become concaved or convexed, so more attention to flattening it is needed.

For these reasons, I wonder if a harder stone might be better suited for a razor, and maybe the Escher produces a finer edge than a coticule? Now you might ask why bother, why not finish up after a norton 8k with a coticule and maybe move on to a chinese 12k, or chromium oxide, or something else... and I say, why would I, if one stone could finish it for me?

Welcome to the deep dark world of HAD. You've been bitten by the HADdus Flyingensius bug. There is no cure.

Natural stones are great and fun to experiment with no doubt.

If the garnets are the same size in the blue and yellow coticule, why does my blue leave a coarser scratch pattern on the bevels?

Chris L

One could argue that if the size of the garnet is the same, and the garnet distribution is less dense, then the force exerted from the weight of the blade would be over fewer points, thus gouging out more steel because of the increased pressure at those points (the same weight would be supported by fewer peaks, creating more pressure at each individual peak).

Additionally, I think this argument stands no matter what the size of the garnet is because the crystal will only penetrate the surface so far, and that is not even the depth of the "finer" specimens in the Coticule. So you might be able to say that the difference in garnet size will not make as much of a difference as the concentration in the stone.

And to throw another wrench in the gears, how do the vintage Coticules factor in against the newer ones? I have always understood the vintage ones as being finer and having more garnet, but if someone knows differently I'd appreciate being corrected.

Originally Posted by izlat

Hm, Eschers may or may not be harder than Belgians, depending on the particular stone. (Btw, I know where the hard stones recommendation came from, Eric )

I was going to say that.
My new toy should reach me any day now
Guy is going to cost me a lot of money in the coming years.
That is not so much a guess as a certainty.