Thread: blue or yellow coticule?

Could someone tell me the difference between blue and yellow coticule?
I can get blue coticule for about £10 but the yellow seems to be about 6 times as expensive!

Thanks

The blue stone is often used to get rid of the prenounced scratch patten caused by a coarse hone used for bevel creation. The coticule (yellow stone) is used to further polish the bevel, it's most common use is as a finishing hone.
The coticule is of most use to us newbies to touch up a dulling razor.
Yes, the yellow does cost considerably more than the blue. I paid about £40 for a 30x125 piece.
Where did you see blues for a tenner?

Originally Posted by shavefreak

I can get blue coticule for about £10

The prices that I've seen tell me that the cost of a BBW doesn't differ that much from a coticule.
I think £10 for a BBW is cheap but I also find £60 for a coticule expensive (considering they're not huge stones). For a middle sized set of BBW and coticule I paid somewhere in between those two prices.

what is a BBW?

Originally Posted by shavefreak

what is a BBW?

Belgian Blue Whetstone

As for the difference between the to: Here is the mine

Sorry if I upset those with the blue stone but..........

A coticule is the yellow stone. It has been used for centuries as a hone for finishing a straight edged razor prior to stropping the edge on a leather strop.

I have only recently (last three years) known of the blue stone from Belgium. Historically, the blue stone was considered inadequate for finishing the honing of a razor. Today however, the blue stone is believed to be about a 6000 grit hone and useful in developing an edge rather than finishing an edge.

For my own part, I have a yellow coticule it measures a small 5" by 2" but hones razors just great.
You need a slurry stone in the same yellow material to get the best out of a coticule.
Very crudely, the yellow coticule will cover the following grit sizes.

Yellow with slurry and with a little pressure.....6000 grit
Yellow with slurry and with a light pressure......7000 grit
Yellow with water and with a little pressure.....8000 grit
Yellow with water and with a light pressure......9000 grit
Yellow dry with light pressure.....................max10000 grit

The blue stone seems to me to be redundant.

Originally Posted by English

The blue stone seems to me to be redundant.

In my experience it depends on the characteristics of each particular yellow coticule. I don't own that many yellow coticules, I think I have 5 in various sizes. There is measurable variation in the cutting and polishing characteristics exhibited by each of those coticules. My largest, recently mined, produces no slurry of its own whatsoever. You can do hundreds of passes with water and after drying, the stone's surface yields no residue powder. It polishes well, but as a "cutter" it's not good. I have another small vintage coticule I just recently lapped for the first time and had time for only about 25 passes to test. I'm amazed that the steel swarf was visible almost immediately.

So, one coticule polishes well but doesn't cut for anything. Another so far, appears to cut right away. Sure, adding slurry from an outside source (a yellow slurry stone) would provide cutting ability to the non-cutting stone, but my long lead in brings me to my argument for Belgian Blue stones:

The Blue stones are natural cutting stones. They're consistent and from my own experience are not varied in performance like the coticules can be. Just because they may not produce edges to a polish level that the coticule does, doesn't mean they're not useful for our purposes. I use my blues for cutting work, micro-chip repair, etc rather than trying the same on my coticules because it gets the work done faster for me. I see them as a complimentary stone to the coticule rather than redundant.

Chris L

I bought a natural yellow/blue from a friend. Posted the combo in the Belgian brotherhood thread. The blue side is great for sharpening razors. It blows my Norton 4000 away. The yellow side is great as well with and without slurry depending on the application. I also have a tiger stripe that is harder then the yellow combo and a kosher from the Ardennes factory. I have to work with them more to see where they fit in to the sequence but they are all good stones.

5 years later none of the above applies. I rarely use coticules, although they are alright, and never use the blue side. A norton 4k is one of my go to hones nowadays.

You know...the yellow has a bit more garnet so it is a little faster 35-40 percent vs the blue which is ~30 percent garnet.

So...like it says on the ardennes site...the yellow is a little faster. Doesn't say anything about the grit being any finer on the yellow. Honestly, i think the only REAL advantage to the yellow...is that you can see the metal residue easier.

That's the price difference( which is alot)...yellow is a bit faster, and you can see the metal residue easier.

The blue is 4k rated and very slow.
the yellow is the prize.