slurry

I have just got my yellow coticule. I have just touched up a razor with slight slurry and finished with water razor feels sharp but does not shave as well as if i had of used my norton. What i have read on the net is that coticulr with a slurry will produce a keen edge but for a nife or normal wood working tool but won't produce a brilliant shaving edge this i carn't understand but is it true as i wanted to use just the coticule for rereshing all of my razors not just for finishing. i have performed more passes on my razor stropped and tested but no improve mant infact slightly worse. this result is the worse i have ever had i normally get good results with my norton set up . Now i 'm not sure wheather to use a slight slurry or not just in case i dull the other razors i own. I have spoke to the guy at invisable edge and he says you have to use a milky slurry because that is what makes the hone perform and he as never heard of the cticule causing dulling or rounding of the edge through the use of a slurry. any simple advice would be helpful for me to achieve agood edge just with the use of my belgium coticule.

When you use a slurry, you are driving your edge into hard particulate matter suspended in solution. When you do that, you are working on a very uneven/unstable surface and the edge suffers...regardless of hone (at least all the hones I have used thus far).

It does cut a lot faster, but it also rounds and/or dulls rather significantly. The thicker the slurry, the more intense the action. I think of it like honing (not stropping) on a piece of abrasive media charged felt, in a way.

Shoot, when I am truly finishing on my coticule, I do it under running water to make sure the garnets are swept away from the edge before the razor's edge bumps em.

I kind of figured that with a slurry i am pushing against particules and this would or could effect the very edge so why do people rave a bout a coticule when in actual fact it rounds the edge causing a non shaving edge. Do i just use with water and never slurry?

Gary,

If in a hurry use slurry. The slurry increase the efficiency of the coticule - it will sharpen an edge faster than without, but as noted earlier the use of slurry will not get you to the sharpest edge you can achieve on that stone. To get to the ultimate edge use the coticule with only water. I have finished with a dry coticule and think it may polish even better than with water, but I need to do some more trying and erroring before I shout that from the roof top.

good shaving,

I run a barbers shop and the guy that had the shop before me he used the coticule he is no w 77 he says they only used water and it took ours i have seen the hone and it is worn right down to the slate he said he never used a slurry stone so if i was to hone with slurry is ther any thing after that that would give a good edge.

After a slurry honing, rinse the stone and use water on the coticule for a final polish.

Bruce so basicly use slurry to achieve a realy good edge and then finish with water and that will give me a real sharp shaving edge is that right?

I'm a first time coticule user too. I just honed a resto after bevel setting on 1200 grit. Used a Belgian Blue in the middle then finally on the yellow. I only used water & the shave impressed me more than an 8K shave. Personally if I want faster cutting I use a lower grit.
Silly question but your stone is lapped flat ? Yes ?

The one time I dulled a razor off a high grit stone was similar to your experience...a new stone. I had lapped it and rounded the edges but after much head scratching I found that I hadn't done that good a job on the edges and there was a rough spot which was catching the blade. A little more smoothing work on the edges and all was well.

Some stones start a little "rough" and after they are used a bit they seem to smooth out. You might try sharpening a couple knifes or something to "break in" your stone and then lap and try the razor again.

Something else that might help is when you are doing your water only finish rinse the stone off every 10 laps to eliminate any slurry that might be forming just from the honing action.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gary haywood

Bruce so basicly use slurry to achieve a realy good edge and then finish with water and that will give me a real sharp shaving edge is that right?

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Yes. You can use a coticule both for honing and for finishing.
If you use a thick slurry, you remove a lot of metal.
Then you use a light slurry to make it sharper.
Then you use water only to polish.

Bruno is the final polish with water what gives you a good shaving edge at the moment i have done 25 with slurry and 25 with water and razor was'nt bad but not as good as normal. so slurry must round the edge slightly do you agree? and with water refines edge to a good shaving edge and then stropping to finish. what i have done is honed a couple of more laps with just slurry it the razor did get worse. when i get back of holiday i will try with water see how i go.

Yes it is but i might give alapping on my dmt personally i think the slurry has rounded my edge alittle i will try 70 laps with water.

In my limited experience, I need about 100 laps or more to get an edge back to razor sharp after rounding it with slurry.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by gary haywood

Bruno is the final polish with water what gives you a good shaving edge at the moment i have done 25 with slurry and 25 with water and razor was'nt bad but not as good as normal. so slurry must round the edge slightly do you agree? and with water refines edge to a good shaving edge and then stropping to finish. what i have done is honed a couple of more laps with just slurry it the razor did get worse. when i get back of holiday i will try with water see how i go.

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It depends on how thick or milky the slurry was.
But is you wash away the slurry, and use only water, there is no harm in doing more laps.
Try doing 50 or 100 laps with water only.

If you have rounded the edge, it is usually best to go back and re establish the bevel /V edge.

!000 to 2000 grit will do it very quickly. if you use wet and dry, the same paper will flatten/lap the surface of your hone.

Then using a heavy slurry on the coticule, hone untill you fell the razor being sucked to the surface. Stop and feel that you have a biting edge.

Again but now with a clean watered surface on your coticule hone until the blade feels as if it is sucking to the hone surface.

Your done with the hone.

If you have Chromium Oxide on leather this will polish even finer, as will newspaper.

If not, no problem, just strop 50 to 100 times on leather.

Your blade (with luck) should be ready to go.

I did use a milky slurry and the razor does still shave but not as well as it shold so i should imagine a thew laps with water should work and i will use chr as i do have some but i'd like to thunk i can get a good shave of the coti first

Good point that

Thanxs for all the advice i will post when i have good result thanxs every one