Thread: Should I buy a belgian stone?

Coticules are great. For centuries they have been THE stone for honing razors, and the yellow one produces a very comfortable shaving edge. They are fun to use, give a lot of "feedback", which means that they offer sound, vision and feel about how your edge is developing while honing. They don't need soaking. Just take them out of a drawer, sprinkle a few drops of water on, and you're good to go. If you use the yellow with slurry, it's remarkably fast for such a fine hone, and it can be used (with some patience) to hone out very small chips or to reset the dulled bevel of old secondhand razors. You can also use it for kitchen knifes and other cutlery. It doesn't hurt the coticule and you 'll be up for quite an epiphany. I own two Belgian Blue Whetstones as well, but I stopped using them for razors. They didn't offer me anything more that the yellow coticule could not provide, so they have moved to my woodshop where they see even more steel than my coticules do. The blue is a great polisher, slightly coarser than the yellow, but too slow to remove much metal. It excels in eating the 600 grit scratches from the DMT diamond hone that I use for bevel formation on my woodworking tools.
For razors I use a DMT 1200 grit for bevel formation (if needed) and the yellow coticule to refine and polish that bevel to shavereadiness. A coticule will last you a lifetime, but beware: some of them carry some kind of bug. If you get bitten by it, they start reproducing themselves, and before you know it you'll own a full drawer.

Can't comment on the Norton. I don't posses one.

Best regards,

Bart.