Thread: Now I get what Bart's been saying...

Today I honed 3 more razors with Barts " Dilutive method" 1 of them got shave ready on the coticule alone, the other two needed 20 laps on the 8000 and 15 laps on the 16k.Then I gave them 30 more laps on the coticule with water.Super smooth!This may not be the fastest way to hone a razor, but for me it sure is the funniest! Its also very hard to fail if you just keep the strokes light and consistent.Many times while using the norton.I've had to go back to the hones 3 or 4 times before I'm happy with the results, that has yet to happen with the use of my coticule.Thanks Bart!

Kristoffer

I've just honed 20 8k norton then 12k kitiyama 20 laps then bbw followed by coti plsin water amnd my dovo tortiose has come up realy nice has i have these hones i thought no arm trying. using bbw/coti realy regular i don't realy feel the improve mant as much if at all when i use my pasted paddle0.5 .5 chr.also i think the edges are a lot smoother than my norton and this makes up for sharpness.

agreed! I have not used chrom ox for my latest razors razors either.Honing is fun fun fun!

I read this thread with interest last night, and this morning took out a razor that I had been struggling with - a W&B Special I had gotten off ebay a few weeks ago. I had previously taken it to the yellow coticule, Shapton 16k and CrO. With other razors, I had been getting comfortable shaves off either the 16k or the paste, but this W&B was rough, no matter how much I stropped.

Long story short, I gave it 50 light laps on the yellow with water, and had a wornderful shave this morning. Thanks!!

Good to hear, Ray!

Yeah, Bart's method of taking blades to fine grits then going back to the coticule with water for a few laps really is a winner.

I've been busy the last couple days putting a new computer together (last one died a horrible death), so I still haven't pitted my green coticule's finishing ability to my new Shapton 30k, but it's still on the menu.


Off Topic:

Migrating everything over to a new PC is such a PITA. My new setup is gonna have a NAS server setup to be a media server (music, video, pictures, everything) and PC backup. You only have to lose data once (or in my case, five times) to become a firm believer in having a good backup strategy. Even my NAS server will be backed up.

Ran my Boker x 7 though this progression:

1200 Chinese synthetic to set bevel
yellow coticule w. slurry thinning to water
Chinese 12000 natural
yellow coticule water only

Great smooth shave w/ Sunday blade.

Thanks FP for clarifying Bart's process.

Special thanks to Bart!

As I understand it, Bart's insight is predicated on the distinction between keenness and smoothness. The coticule with light slurry will make your razor keen but not very keen (because of the slight rounding effect at the very edge of even a light slurry). Meanwhile the coticule without slurry is an excellent smoother of already-very-keen edges, but it's not very good at imparting keenness in the first place (unless you have the patience for hundreds of laps). So he squeezes in an artificial hone between the blue with slurry and the yellow without. Artificial hones can cut fast without slurry, unlike the coticule (and many other naturals).

I'm reiterating all of this because I want to make sure I've understood correctly. This would explain a lot to me. I remember for example that in one of the old "Lynn's tips" stickies, Lynn described doing 1/15 pyramids between the Norton 8K and the coticule with light slurry. I never understood why Lynn was pyramiding between the Norton & the coticule, but now it makes perfect sense: the occasional stroke on the aggressive Norton corrects any slight rounding resulting from the smoothing action of the 15 coticule strokes.

I've often noticed (or at least I think I've noticed, I could be imagining things) that those who tend to feel that the coticule needs to be followed by pastes are those who, like me, are using the DMT 1200 – BBW – coticule paradigm. In other words, no artificial hones past the bevel-creation stage. Whereas if you look at those who say the coticule edge is everything you could want or hope for (for example Bigspendur), they're using artificial hones at the 8K+ stage, just prior to the coticule.

All of which is very satisfactorily explained by Bart's insight. "Chasing keenness." Brilliant!

I'm curious to hear others' thoughts on the above. In the meantime, I'm going to try twenty or so strokes on a swaty after my blue-with-slurry and before my yellow-with-water.

Thanks, Dylandog, that's a great summary of what I've been trying to explain for many posts now.
I can't help myself for using many, many words where a few could suffice.

Bart.

Well, as I say I wanted to clarify it for myself because, as I go through this thread, it seems that some guys are reading you differently. The take-away for some seems to be the idea of going to a higher grit and then coming back down to the coticule. One guy for example is talking about going to the Chinese 12K and then back to the coticule, which doesn't make sense to me as an implementation of your method (that's not to say it's not a good progression in its own right).

Because as I understand it, you want to sort of banish the idea of grit for the purposes of the discussion. It's not about going "up" and then coming back "down" – it's about alternating between aggressive artificial hones that impart a grabby keenness and natural hones that make that keen edge more comfortable. The aggressive artificial hone might be a Chosera 10K, a Shapton 16K, even perhaps a Shapton 30K. But the point is not the high grit per se, but rather that grabby keenness you're "chasing." Even the Norton 8K seems to do this (that was the point of my observations about guys who use the coticule after Norton pyramids).

I can't afford a Chosera or a Shapton right now, so I'm hoping that even the lowly swaty will work.

Originally Posted by dylandog

Well, as I say I wanted to clarify it for myself because, as I go through this thread, it seems that some guys are reading you differently. The take-away for some seems to be the idea of going to a higher grit and then coming back down to the coticule. One guy for example is talking about going to the Chinese 12K and then back to the coticule, which doesn't make sense to me as an implementation of your method (that's not to say it's not a good progression in its own right).

Well, I don't own a Chinese 12K, so I can't comment on what it does.

Originally Posted by dylandog

Because as I understand it, you want to sort of banish the idea of grit for the purposes of the discussion. It's not about going "up" and then coming back "down" – it's about alternating between aggressive artificial hones that impart a grabby keenness and natural hones that make that keen edge more comfortable. The aggressive artificial hone might be a Chosera 10K, a Shapton 16K, even perhaps a Shapton 30K. But the point is not the high grit per se, but rather that grabby keenness you're "chasing." Even the Norton 8K seems to do this (that was the point of my observations about guys who use the coticule after Norton pyramids).

I can't afford a Chosera or a Shapton right now, so I'm hoping that even the lowly swaty will work.

Grit ratings are a very blunt instrument (pun intended) for describing a hone's capabilities. Grit ratings say nothing about a hones speed and even less about it's ability to actively make an edge keener and at what level it will eventually level off. A Coticule that cuts with a wide variety of speeds depending on the specimen, when used with slurry, and does not even leave a particularly polished look when used with water,... how on earth must we rate a weird stone like that.

Honing is not about replacing scratches by finer scratches with increasingly finer hones. That may be the modus operandi for Shaptons or Nortons, (although, if you compare the pattern of the Shapton 16K with that of the 30K...) But because it is an effective paradigm for man-made hones, that doesn't automatically makes that principle imperative.
The real deal with honing is that we have to sneak up to the edge. During the early honing stages, we can knock big lumps of steel off the bevel sides. The more we approach our goal, the slower, and very importantly, the shallower we have to approach the steel that we want to leave in place and that will become our final edge.
Making gritty particles smaller is the obvious way to make sure they will cut shallower, which is the only thing that really matters. But nature does not always work in the obvious way. Coticules have round garnets. The larger those garnets the shallower they cut. That may sound counterintuitive, but think about it: due to the applied pressure being spread over a larger surface, the garnet will penetrate the steel less deep. That does explain, why a Belgian Blue: 1. cuts slower than a Coticule and 2. allows the edge to become keener than a Coticule. (both used with slurry).
Coticules have garnets with a size comparable to 1K-2K grit. But with water, the largest part of those garnets stays safely embedded in the hone's surface. That makes the hone extremely slow. And shallow. Just what we were after. The resulting pattern is soft and wavy, without much brilliance. With the right keenness, it will sever whiskers very well, but it will not scrape nor grab the skin.

If you had a year time, you could hone a razor on a Coticule with water. You'd get there eventually. That seems impractical. So we have to start with less shallow hones that get the job done a bit faster without wracking the steel that needs to stay. I don't really care if that's done by natural hones or synthetics. In fact, I find the Coticule itself, when used with slurry extremely usefull for doing the bulk part of the work (as long as the razor started out in dull yet fair condition). Using a barber hone for the next part, sounds like a promising idea. Beware of overhoning, I have often read they are notorious for that. It all depends on the keenness you'll get off the barber hone.

I needed many words again...

Please keep me posted about the results on the barber hone.

Bart.