Coticule vs Paste

So...ive been trying to learn to hone. I have a Yellow Coticule as a finishing stone. I had a member tell me to take my blade to the Pasted paddle... 0.5 side as a finishing. I thought that the Coticule would be the finishing. I did try the paste and it made it that much sharper.

What do you recommend as a finisher....stones or paste. If pastes were preferred, what Micron do you suggest. I think i may take the Strop I have now and put some paste on it and get a new strop.

If a Stone is preferred as a finisher....what do you recommend...or am I good with the Coticule.

After the coticule, 10-15 laps to 0,5 diamond and 25-35 to 0,25 produces for me a very fine and smooth edge

After the coticule, if you did a good job nothing else is needed you should have a have a perfect edge for shaving. If you really want the ultimate in sharpness you can do a few laps on .25 diamond but the edge won't last as long as off the coticule. Just keep in mind that the more you hone the razor at finer and finer grits the sharper it becomes but it also becomes more delicate and more prone to damage and getting fewer shaves. So you are walking a fine line between being sharp enough to do the job and get a great shave and going overboard or underboard.

Isaac,
I think you'll have some good fun experimenting with the diamond paste on a strop but check the shave after each different treatment. I believe you'll end up with just a coticule and natural leather strop but the fun is in the journey. Focus more on your honing skills and I believe you'll get a better return on investment.

While I am obviously a fan of pasted strops it is easy to over do it and get a delicate edge that does not hold up as long. I favor a less is more approach, several sets of a few passes rather than a mega 15-20 pass, over stropping, wiredge creating marathon <g>.

The same goes for the coticle as well really, less is more.

Tony

My sharpest edges have come from sparingly using several stages after the Norton combo. 3 laps on a 12k, about 12 on 0.5 Chromium oxide and then about a half dozen 0.25 diamond paste. The further along I want to go, the more conservative I need to be.

X

To piggyback off of X's comments about being conservative... It's best to use a tiny, tiny bit of paste. My chromium oxide paddle strop has three faint X's on it--that's it. I made them by wetting my finger a little, dipping lightly in the powdered paste, and drawing my finger across the leather. You can barely tell it's pasted.

My first paddle strop had so much paste on it that it looked like a pool table, as another member puts it. It looked purdy but destroyed my edges. :)

With diamond paste, try putting a little dab on your finger and drawing a few X's on the stropping surface. That way the paddle cuts slower and you have more control over how much you want to sharpen the razor.

Good luck,
Josh