Thread: belgium blue

Originally Posted by joke1176

Thank you for saying this. It makes me cringe when I hear people talk about "older" coticules being better than "newer" ones...


That's like saying old diamonds are better than newer mined stones.

funny thing is though, my kosher bout I just got off Rob, is more like my "vintage" monster coticule than my other pieces of coticule!????????
M

I've just shaved with the two razors and must say both shaved good slurry on coticule did'nt seem to make razor perform any worse but not any better.

This is a great thread. It answered many of my questions. I was becoming discouraged with my BBW/Coticule combo. After going through every post, I'll have another go at it.

One question though: Is it OK to build a slurry on the BBW with a 1K wet/dry sandpaper? I don't have a DMT. Thanks.

Originally Posted by TstebinsB

This is a great thread. It answered many of my questions. I was becoming discouraged with my BBW/Coticule combo. After going through every post, I'll have another go at it.

One question though: Is it OK to build a slurry on the BBW with a 1K wet/dry sandpaper? I don't have a DMT. Thanks.

Yeah, it really is a great thread... I'd be worried about building a slurry with sandpaper. The 1k sandpaper abrasives might be left behind on your coticule. I could see lapping, and then thoroughly rinsing, your BBW/yellow with 1k sandpaper, but I don't think raising a slurry with it would be the thing to do.

Originally Posted by FloorPizza

Yeah, it really is a great thread... I'd be worried about building a slurry with sandpaper. The 1k sandpaper abrasives might be left behind on your coticule. I could see lapping, and then thoroughly rinsing, your BBW/yellow with 1k sandpaper, but I don't think raising a slurry with it would be the thing to do.

No need to worry. Just use 320 girt sand paper of a decent quality. Or even coarser. At work I keep a Coticule for sharpening knives that are being used to cut paper and cardboard. That particular Coticule is too hard to generate enough slurry with a slurry stone. Hence I use sandpaper. The sandpaper hardly ever looses a particle, but on the rare occasion it does, the stray particle is easy to spot (as long as you use black, blue or brown sandpaper) and easy to remove with a fingertip.
I have also used this method while testing out very hard Coticules for razor honing. I basically sand the Coticule dry till enough dust is present on top, next I add a few drops of water and mix with a smearing motion, adding more water for the appropriate consistency. This is a great method for those Coticules that don't produce a decent slurry with the regular slurry stone method.
I never found any adverse effects in the use of sandpaper, as long as decent wet & dry sand paper is used.

Bart.

Howard (the Perfect Edge) sells slurry stones. He calls them cotigura stones. On stones I've gotten that didn't include a slurry stone I have used a credit card sized DMT 325 plate that I have. Very convenient and it will outlast a mess of sandpaper. I don't think it will leave any particles and it is relatively flat.

You can actually see the garnets if you hold the stone at the right angle in good light. They look like tiny polka dots. The blues cut quickly and I always use them with a slurry. After it looks like the edge is completely done by the blue (I look at it under magnification), I then finish on the coticule. Light strokes then strop on natural leather. Gives me a smooth face.

Originally Posted by Howard

You can actually see the garnets if you hold the stone at the right angle in good light. They look like tiny polka dots. The blues cut quickly and I always use them with a slurry. After it looks like the edge is completely done by the blue (I look at it under magnification), I then finish on the coticule. Light strokes then strop on natural leather. Gives me a smooth face.

If you are referring to the purplish dots, those are not the actual garnets. Those dots are in the 100-300 micron range. I think the garnets are the smaller specks that can be seen with magnification They're in the 10-20 micron range. See the attached picture.
In my experience the Belgian Blue is not a fast hone. I would rather rate it as slow, when I compare it to how fast some Coticules remove steel. I think the Coticule garnets are not only present in a higher concentration, but they also penetrate the steel better. I speculate that Coticule garnets are less fragmented, which causes the spiky corners of the garnets to be sharper. Hence the faster performance, but also more abrasion on the tip of the edge. The Blue is slower, more gentler to the edge, and therefor, with slurry, allows for a keener edge than the Yellow. (less "slurry-dulling").

Bart.

Sounds about right

Gary, you can use a cotigura (coticule slurry stone) on a belgium blue to raise a slurry. It's OK to go from finer to coarser. Or you can get a blue slurry stone and those will work fine especially if you like to keep things clean and similar.