Thread: coticule vs escher

Btw, most people here seem to think the escher and coticule are on par.
Remember that their prices aren't.
For the price of one teeny-tiny 5*1.25 Escher you can buy 2 8*3 coticules from howard.

Originally Posted by Bruno

Btw, most people here seem to think the escher and coticule are on par.
Remember that their prices aren't.
For the price of one teeny-tiny 5*1.25 Escher you can buy 2 8*3 coticules from howard.

Are you saying that the 35 dollars total that I put up for my two vintage eschers could have bought me four 8 x 3 coticules? Jeez, if I had only known I wouldn't of been so wasteful with my money!

Originally Posted by Chrisl

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

The garnets are not the same size in both stones, the garnets in the blue are larger than those in the yellow. Howard told me that the difference in size (and thus grit) have to do with the differences in cooling time between the yellow and blue when the stones are forming. I forgot which had more time to cool and whether more time to cool means bigger or smaller garnets; but this is why the blue is rated a lower grit than the yellow. It also would make sense that the yellow stone could hold more smaller garnets than the blue with bigger garnets because there would be more room. It's kind of like trying to see how many people you can fit in a VW Bug. The yellow coticule garnets would be like midgets and the blue garnets would be like Sumo wrestlers

David

Originally Posted by JMS

Are you saying that the 35 dollars total that I put up for my two vintage eschers could have bought me four 8 x 3 coticules? Jeez, if I had only known I wouldn't of been so wasteful with my money!

Tell you what: I'll pay you 70 dollar for both. Then you will have made a 100% profit.
Of course I do this because I am such a nice guy, no need to thank me.

Definitely higher dollars for the Escher. I have honed a couple thousand razors on both the Coticule and the Escher and definitely prefer the polish and consistency I get from my Escher. Nothing scientific, just based on use.

Lynn

I have only used the coticule, but I have had two of them. What I can say is that the first stone cut faster. Don't ask what happened to it, lets just say it broke into many pieces.

When I went to buy a replacement and my jaw dropped when I heard the price, I was told that for a period the Belgian mines had closed down because it had become uneconomic to mine the stone. It's quite recent that new mining equipment together with customer demand had allowed the mines to reopen and the latest stone which is from a deeper sources in the mine is naturally harder and every bit as good if not better than the older stone. He said that when the mines closed, the story went around that they couldn't find good quality stone anymore. He said that just wasn't true , it was purely an economic decision. The mines were making no money. Unfortunately when the mines reopened, the stigma that the new stones were not of such a high quality persisted. He said as a seller and user of the stones for many years and that included both new and old stones, it just wasn't true. He believed that as a general observation, the new stones which are from deeper in the mine are the best quality he has ever seen. He did say that of course with any natural product, some stones are better than others and many years ago, there was a lot more product to choose from.

This might all be rubbish information of course as it comes from one source. but the guy had been selling coticules all his life and should know what he was talking about.

So what's the difference between similar types of natural product? To some extent it must depends on the quality of the stones you are comparing. The differences to me sound so minor that one man's coticule might be better than another man's escher or vice versa. I don't think there is a definitive answer, so the search will have to go on.

Originally Posted by Lynn

Definitely higher dollars for the Escher. I have honed a couple thousand razors on both the Coticule and the Escher and definitely prefer the polish and consistency I get from my Escher. Nothing scientific, just based on use.

Lynn

Lynn,

How does the hardness of the stones compare? Is there a different feel to the stroke on the escher vs. a coticule?

I've heard that eschers are softer and will quickly build a slurry with just normal honing.

I've always preferred the feel of the stroke on my Belgian blue over the way the coticule feels. The softer blue feels like honing on velvet, while the coticule feels like, well, a rock.

Josh

I think the bigger blue crystals had more cooling time. Slower cooling would allow more time for the crystals to grow.

Josh

Originally Posted by heavydutysg135

The garnets are not the same size in both stones, the garnets in the blue are larger than those in the yellow. Howard told me that the difference in size (and thus grit) have to do with the differences in cooling time between the yellow and blue when the stones are forming. I forgot which had more time to cool and whether more time to cool means bigger or smaller garnets; but this is why the blue is rated a lower grit than the yellow. It also would make sense that the yellow stone could hold more smaller garnets than the blue with bigger garnets because there would be more room. It's kind of like trying to see how many people you can fit in a VW Bug. The yellow coticule garnets would be like midgets and the blue garnets would be like Sumo wrestlers

David

Josh, I realize you asked Lynn but if I may chime in, my experience (with thuringians, vintage and NOS, but not Eschers in particular) is that the stones are indeed softer and smoother feeling than the coticule. I like your description "honing on velvet", the thuringians that I've used definitely feel like velvet and give a superb edge.

But I have yet to be able to tell a realistic difference between the two resulting edges, maybe after a couple more months of testing the different stones I'll be able make a distinction but for now they remain equals in my book.

Thanks, Russel. That's helpful. To me the softer hones seem more forgiving.

I wonder if a "perfect coticule edge" is similar to a "perfect escher edge," but that the softness makes the escher edge more attainable. Just musing...

Josh