Thread: Belgian Coticule as finishing stone?

Originally Posted by randydance062449

I would first hone on the Norton 8K then strop and test shave.
This should give you a good shave.
If not then stay on the4K/ 8K until it is a good shaving edge. Jumping to the coticule will not make it better.
Once you do obtain a very good shave from the 8K then you can perform 30-50 laps on the coticule, water only, strop and test shave.
Repeat until you obtain a desirable shave.

BTW, you can overhone on a coticule or an escher. It does take hundreds of laps.

When I first got into this I already had a Swaty so I would hone on the Norton 4/8 and then finish on the Swaty. Wasn't long before I had a Shapton 12k and an Escher blue/green and I would finish on one of those. I had never shaved off of an 8k until tonight.

He has helped me a great deal with my honing so I set great store in what Randy says. After reading his post above I took a Bartmann Mangenese Wedge that I got off of ebay last week and honed it up. It was basically like new and didn't need much. A conservative pyramid on the 4/8 and it was fine with the TPT. I stropped it and much of the edge would pass HHT.

The important test came next and I got BBS in a two pass shave. Not quite as smooth as it would have been if I would have polished the edge with a higher grit but plenty comfortable and plenty close. Thanks again Randy !

Jimmy, thanks for the compliment.

It has surprised me that guys feel a fine finishing hone is necessary. It is not. An 8K hone will provide a very good shave by itself. The pastes and finer hones do provide a sharper edge and/or a more comfortable shave but they are not a necessity.

The other mistake is that guys feel that a 8k hone will make up for a poor job done on the 4K hone. Guess again, it just does not work that way!

I still haven't tried a natural stone yet. After my Norton 4/8 I finish with a Shapton 16k and it works great for me. Like someone mentioned in another thread, I like having an actual grit count on my hones for some reason. The 16K puts a pretty nice polish on the edge and makes for a nice, comfortable shave IMO.

I've also tryed shaving at the 8k i have been using norton 4k/8k for 2 years now and i have never shaved of the 8k.
So i gave it ago and guess what no problem infact i think for the every day shaver like my self that is all you need. On my second shave this morning i have aded the coticule with water 75 laps yeh probably a little smoother but not much and defanatley not sharper i have 12k kitiyama i think i will try the same routine but with 12k kitiyama and compare. To be onest i have two coticules one bbw and 12k kitiyama .You have to try differant hones and if you don't need them you could easily sell them but i realy think the norton is ideal and all you need unless you hone razors for living.

For about a year, I used to just use my Coticule as a finishing stone. At first with a light slurry and then just with water. All my Coticule's have a very tight grain and quite nice actually. When I came off the 8K to the Coticule, I found that 10-15 strokes was optimal and that if not perfect, I could come back to fine tune at 5 stroke incriments. Just for the sake of discussion, there was a period of time when I just used the 4K/8K and got really nice shaving results. At this time I am using either a "Real" Escher stone or Nakayama as my polisher and sometimes I will follow with the paste or diamond spray. I still find that 10-15 strokes works best for me on the Escher or Nakayama.

Lynn

Originally Posted by Lynn

I still find that 10-15 strokes works best for me on the Escher or Nakayama. Lynn

I have been trying Lynn's "the less strokes the better" policy more and more and it is working really well for me most of the time.

Wow, Randy just blew my mind. I've been honing under the impression that you could not over hone on the coticule. I typically do about a hundred laps or so before I shave test. For the life of my I can't seem to do the tpt so I rely on how well it shaves arm hair as my test.

Though after reading that Lynn only does 10-15 laps I think I'll pull it back some. I've never shaved off a bbw and assumed I needed more laps on the coticule to make it shave ready. This may change my whole outlook.

FWIW I've tried the TPT on a new double edge blade and can't feel a thing. Maybe I'me doing it wrong.

Anyway, to answer the post, I finish on a coticule. Lately I've used two to finish. The first is an old combo that is soft enough to draw a slurry on its own, then I follow it up with a much harder coticule. I don't know if that last stone does anything more but I like it.

Originally Posted by JCitron

Wow, Randy just blew my mind. I've been honing under the impression that you could not over hone on the coticule. I typically do about a hundred laps or so before I shave test.

If Randy says he can overhone on a Coticule, I believe him. But I can't.

Originally Posted by JCitron

Though after reading that Lynn only does 10-15 laps I think I'll pull it back some. I've never shaved off a bbw and assumed I needed more laps on the coticule to make it shave ready. This may change my whole outlook.

When used with water a Coticule makes relatively wide but very shallow scratches. It is a very slow process. A fast for its fineness 8K synthetic hone, such as a Norton, leaves a crisp, peaky scratch pattern. Overly simplified:
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The Coticule easily abrades the sharp tips of those scratches. The result resembles:
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As the Coticule progresses down, the surface it needs to abrade becomes increasingly larger, which slows it down at an exponential rate. In practical terms it will never really hit the bottom of the valleys. If you have magnification, you can do a little experiment: hone with a toe leading X-stroke on the 8K, and next try removing the scratches with a heel leading X-stroke on a Coticule with water. Both hones' scratches run in different direction, so it's easy to spot when the 8K pattern is completely eradicated. You'll see that it takes a long time. A very long time.

Luckily, it does not really matter. The first strokes are the most efficient, hence for smoothing out a synthetic scratch pattern, it does not take much, but it does not matter either if you do a lot more. (I am only talking about Belgian hones here, used with water) This also explains why a Coticule with water will never make up for neglected sharpness at the previous level.

Now. If you hone a progression of DMT1200 - Belgian Blue/slurry - Coticule/water, Then your maximum sharpness will be what you manage to achieve of the Blue with slurry. That is decently shaveready, but it is not ulteriorly keen as the Chosera 10K (and I also suspect as the Shapton 16K, but I don't own that one, so I can't make hard statements here) If you want to squeeze out the last bit, to maximize the keenness possible with the DMT-Belgian progression, you need to do enough laps on the finishing Coticule. If you are prepared to convex the edge after that with CrO, and pay the longevity price, you can achieve ulterior keeness, but the Belgian edge shaves very smooth without it.

Originally Posted by JCitron

Anyway, to answer the post, I finish on a coticule. Lately I've used two to finish. The first is an old combo that is soft enough to draw a slurry on its own, then I follow it up with a much harder coticule. I don't know if that last stone does anything more but I like it.

Coming off the 8K, I would skip the soft Coticule and go straight to the hard Coticule. If Lynn recommends 15 laps, I'd start right there.

Best regards,
Bart.

Originally Posted by Bart

[FONT=Arial]If you hone a progression of DMT1200 - Belgian Blue/slurry - Coticule/water, Then your maximum sharpness will be what you manage to achieve of the Blue with slurry.

I agree with this statement, but this is why I use a coticule w/light slurry after the blue w/slurry and before the coticule w/water.

Sometimes people assume that since a coticule's heavy slurry is seriously dulling, a moderate slurry must be moderately dulling, and a light slurry must be lightly dulling. In my experience this is not the case. A light slurry speeds up the coticule and improves the keenness considerably after the blue. I do about 30 or 40 laps with light slurry, adding water and making it still lighter as I go along, then wash it off and do a few dozen light laps w/water only.

I realize that every coticule's different. With a light slurry mine keens up a razor pretty quickly.

I recently got a BBW and a cotucule, and, with limited experience, I have had some success. I have been setting bevels on a King 1K, moving to the blue with slurry, going to the blue with just water, and then the coticule with water.

While I have not honed many razors, I will say this progression seems to be working for me. Yesterday I used a 6/8 ish, wedgie blade and got an amazing shave shave after one pass with and one pass against the grain and some cleaning up here and there. I have also noticed that I am left with no irritation, even in the areas where I did the cleaning up.

Sharp and smooth, and I can't wait to hone more.