Thread: Soaking Belgian blue/carborundum combo?

I recently purchased a "Cotcarb" from Ardennes Coticule, who quarry Coticules and Belgian Blues (of course I got myself a nice Coticule as well). The cotcarb is a combination stone. One side is Belgian Blue, the other is a 600 grit synthetic carborundum stone.

I know that many synthetic whetstones require soaking before use. Do any of you know if the carborundum side of my Cotcarb falls into this category?

I have one of these hones, too. I don't believe it needs to be soaked at all. You can use the carborundum side dry or with water. The blue Belgian works best if you use water and develop a slurry.

I bought this hone with the hope that it could be an inexpensive beginner hone, so I tried to use it as a beginner would to sharpen an eBay special. After several hours of work, I wasn't able to get a razor shave-ready. It was very frustrating; the carborundum side just doesn't develop the kind of edge you need to take advantage of the Beligan blue.

It is a nice hone for knives, though, and now it lives in my kitchen.

If you have better luck with yours, let us know how you did it. This was a hone I really wanted to believe in.

Josh

I've seen those stones as well from the mine. I only wish they would start to manufacture the bonded Belgian Blue and Yellow Coticule combo stone again. You can find vintage specimens like this (Just ask Gugi about his major score on a 9" blue/yellow bonded combo) but I understand they haven't been manufactured like that for 4+ decades.

I actually asked Rob Cellis from the Ardennes mine if they had any plans on bonding a blue and yellow together to make those kind of combo stones again rather than slate under yellow. I mentioned that I thought there would be a demand for this in the razor world. He said at this time they have no plans to do that.

Chris L

Thank you for your replies, gents.

A blue/yellow combo is what I was looking for when I saw the Ardennes Coticule site. Then I discovered that the only combination stone they were selling was the Cotcarb. I thought "I'll probably be needing something coarser as well, this stone is for me, hooray!" and went ahead and bought it.

I've tried an old razor on it, but I'm not yet experienced enough to bring it all the way to shave-ready. So I couldn't really tell you if my luck is better. But thanks for the heads-up that I might be wasting my time with a razor on this one. I think I'll use the stone to put a decent edge on my kitchen knives, lap it, and give my old razor a run for its money.

When the belgians first produced these, I got a few and sent them out to several honemeisters. Their response made me decide not to carry them in my lineup of straight razor hones. I think they would make great knife hones.

They do actually.