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I have a Coticule 1 3/4 to 2 1/4 in large and 4 1/2 long. Now I am going to buy a second stone: a BBW.
Since I work well with my coticule, is 1 1/8 x 4 a good dimension for the BBW? The next step would be 7 3/4 x 2. I think I will use the BBW to settle bevels on ebay razors too, since I have no low grit stones. In this case will the wider one help?
[I read around about similar questions, but a custom answer is welcome! eh!]
Thanks!
if you are planning to work on ebay razor's BBW WONT be so much help.you need to go 1000 grit .after this you can use BBW.hope hleps
...mmm... I read about guys using the BBW as first stone, but OK: I could use my coticule+slurry to start and then the BBW. Right? In this case?
no oppsite 1000+bbw+coticule with slurry then without slurry.good luck
this is for ebay razor
Thanks! I wrote it because I read this in the wiki page by Bart:
Final notes
Some Coticules are fast cutters when a slurry is raised. Those specimen are quite capable of doing the work of the DMT-E in the above honing paradigm. Use a milk-like consistency for the slurry and gradually wash it down to plain water during your last 40 strokes. Then proceed to the BBW for step 2.
what he means dmt e is equvalent of 1200 grit now bbw is aprox 4000 and belgian coticule is 8000 and more(this griting natural hone is just for guiding)
he is right to say with slurry cuts faster use it and then slowly dilute the slurry for final edge.
i think if you read more you should see he will mention using coticule after bbw.This is what i know.hope helps.
What I've understood was that the Coticule with heavy slurry removed more metal faster than the BBW with slurry due to higher garnet content.Quote:
Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl
It then required a follow up with the BBW with medium to lightly heavier slurry for increased sharpness.
This is then followed by coticule with water only for a high level of polish and smooth shave.
Please correct me if I'm wrong but that was what I got from Bart's writings.
I've personally done the Coticule w/slurry x, circles, and Japanese style. Following this I use a coticule with slurry but very thin and with the standard x pattern.
I really like the vast modes of the coticule.
My 2cents.
MikeB
..that one was my idea too..
A very fast coticule with slurry can do the job but consider the cost compared to a small DMT.
The size you mention is great I use narrow small hones even for my DMT's. (D4's) Makes it much easier to hone those eBay jobs if the spine is less than straight.
Ok Now i have problem with this sentences.Quote:
Originally Posted by sdsquarepoint
this is the what i know.
BBW has larger garnets then Coticule.
FAst Cutting is depend on size of the garnet not the amount of it in square/ F(+what joins garnets together -material) .etc.I hope i am clear in this.If Mr Bart has some scientific prove i don't know and i can't put word's on his or anyone else mouth.
:gl:
Coticules and Belgian Blues both use garnets to cut. The blue's garnets are between 10 and 20 microns and the Coticule has garnets ranging between 5 and 15 microns. Hence the Blue has bigger garnets, but still it is a much (and I mean much) slower hone than the average Coticule. Garnets are a sort of faceted round particles that spin underneath the steel while cutting. I think the bigger garnets of the blue have the pressure spread out over a bigger surface and therefor penetrate the steel less deep, making it a shalower cutter than a Coticule. Maybe the garnet's faceted edges in the Blue are not as keen as those in Coticule. I'm only speculating. But the everyday experience is that with many Coticules you can remove steel pretty fast, as long as you raise a slurry. It doesn't need to be thick. Milky is fine. On hard razor's steel (and also on other tool steel), the Blue with slurry comes nowhere near the speed of a Coticule. Actually, the funny thing is, the Blue is mined for as long as Coticule is mined (many ages), because they can't get to the Coticule if they don't remove the Blue at first. But it is only very recently that it was discovered that the Blue has honing qualities. The Blue is a great polisher of already keen edges, and it has also the ability to refine an edge after it comes off the Coticule with slurry. The use of slurry makes the keenness of the edge level off at a given point. But the Blue with slurry is able to push it further than the Coticule with slurry.
Although I own a DMT1200, and used it at the time I wrote that article that's now in the Wiki, nowadays I hardly ever use my DMT. I always set the bevel on a Coticule. If the slurry shows gray discoloration within 15 to 20 laps or so (or even sooner), than your Coticule is fast enough to do bevel work. The resulting bevels are excellent: they shave arm hair quite well and have no deep scratches, which leaves the blade completely ready for further keenification on the Blue, or on any synthetic hone in the 8K-10K range. Some people even take it (progressively) all the way to a Shapton 16K before finishing it on the same Coticule, now with only water. Coticules are extremely slow when used with water only and they leave an edge that tends to be very forgiving and smooth during the shave, for many people.
Best regards,
Bart.
Easy test! Very clear. Thank you!!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bart
This is not clear to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Bart
If Blue is a better refine(improve is my understanding) edge stone then why it is price not same as Escher's yellow coticules etc?
We price hones buy not fast cutting but how fine edge comes out from particular hone?I really don't understand and may be won;t until have better explanation(may be my english isn't good enough).
don't know but not agree with that idea.
Question is why?The use of slurry makes the keenness of the edge level off at a given point.
I do know there is yellow coticules will cut fast and act as same as 4000 grit hones(i had one before).My problem not fast cutting but putting final edge.I think yellow coticule good ones will put final edge better always then BBW.
about pricing...
BBW is plenty available: they build entire houses in it in the region where it is found.
Coticule is much less readily available in much smaller veins and difficult to extract.
Eshers come from a mine that's closed and flooded under water. You can only by vintage collector's hones.
There's your price difference.
As far as performance differences. I'm only stating what I have found through testing a variety of Coticules and Blues in a pretty scientific setup. You can read my old threads about that.
I hope to go to Ardennes Coticules in April or May, when they're fully stocked with new hones again (they can't extract raw coticule during winter), and collect more empiric data.
But the difference in speed between a Blue and a Yellow is really very obvious.
Best regards,
Bart.
Somehow I doubt a coticule with any kind of slurry will be nearly as aggressive or efficient as a Norton 1000 for retooling dull and chipped ebay razors
Personally, I use a King 1K stone, BBW with slurry (which I slowly dilute till I end up with just water), and then my coticule with a little lather (to prevent the water from beading).
A coticule with slurry will cut faster than a BBW with slurry (I'm pretty sure this will almost always be the case), and I believe that is why the wiki suggests the coticule with slurry, BBW with slurry, BBW with water, coticule with water method.
You'll have to figure out what works with you given your stones. The BBW and coticules are all different because they are natural. I didn't want to take the time to experiment with what my coticule could do with a slurry, so I took the lazy route and stuck with the 1K for the low end work.
Bringing a butter knife dull blade to perfect sharpness with one coticule is as satisfying as it comes. It might take a little longer but you learn the dynamics of the natural coticule. I aspire to be a "blade whisperer". MikeB
I use the barts method all the time and it works on my razors and shaves my fairly thick stubble realy well and also achieves a smooth edge you carn't over hone its realy easy method. I have tryed finishing on on yellow with slurry it dulled my edge to where no way could i shave comfortable i then rescued that blade with some lap[s on yellow wiyh plain water but still i find my edge was sharper with blue slurry then yellow water i somtimes slot 8k noton in between the blue and yellow i also finish on chr.5 to make things a little smoother and keener but to be onest i find it does'nt make a notisable differance as the belgiums realy do the smoothing.. I have the a small bbw stone and i prefer to my larger one i think it measures5 by 1 and a half inch it is a combo the other side is kosher grade yellow.
Thanks! I think I will buy the small one: I like the idea of a pocket stone even if I'll probably never keep it into my pocket.. and I leave the other half of the big stone for the future generations.. eh!
I can't comment on that, because I have no Norton 1K. However, I have Coticules that rival my DMT-E.Quote:
Originally Posted by hoglahoo
If you correlate the garnet size of Coticules with particle size on synthetic waterhones, that puts Coticules in the 1.5K ball park.
But the resulting edge is way smoother than that. But not the keenness. I think that's what's so confusing about them. With slurry on a Coticule you end up at 1.5K sharpness level while getting no micro serrations as on most synthetic hones in that range. The edge is smoother than an 8K, but not as keen. Diluting the slurry helps, but it's pretty unpredictable how far you gonna get. That's why it comes in handy to have "mediator hone" to boost keenness, before you can finish on the same Coticule with water (which leaves the keennes intact, because the garnets stay embedded in the surface of the hone).
Of course there are other great hones and methods for finishing, and also for doing bevel work. But Coticules excel at both. The only thing they don't excel in is in what I call "keenification", although the dilluting trick sometimes produces edges for me that absolutely are "as good as it ever gets". I've still not entirely figured out why it's so unpredictable, and the search for a Coticule that's consistent in that field continues, as well as the quest for a better method.
In the mean time, the Belgian Blue Whetstone with a light slurry is a great companion to "fill the gap". Aren't we lucky in Belgium?:D
Best regards,
Bart.
I have never done this coticule+ bbw and then again coticule progression.I was talking with understanding how stone should act in scientific way.
Now i do have bunch of coticules +bbw will go and test it.After i have done couple testes i will let you know what i think.
So far my mind tells me it shouldn't work but no one knows how it will in practice.Lets hope Bart's idea is right.
May be that is why i don't like coticule's because i never able to get a good sharp shave ready edge after using it.
i must finish it up on escher's ,Nakayama etc.
I finally gave it a go last night and found that my slurried coticule was actually pretty effective in helping me toward setting a bevel I was having trouble with. So even though I don't have a clue what my experience means, I can tell that as you say the coticule can be more versatile than I previously thought. More to come I'm sure!Quote:
Originally Posted by Bart
First picture shows Belgian combo coticule,belgian slurry,dmt, and Bengall.
This is how i started the test.
i cecked the edge on Bengal and it was pretty good .Then i said lets start with coticule heavy slurry.(i don't know how to add sentences to the picture that is why i will type everything in here but will post all pictures too)
Made 60 laps and then check the edge again .OOPs problem it did clean up the edge and i saw a small crack in the edge.At this moment i knew belgian will take forever take that crack out turned myself to dmt.Mae 30-50 strokes crack was gone.Next i should go back to the Coticule with slurry.i did again and 70 lalps .Then i went to BBW with slurry and did 100 laps checked the edge.Result edge was getting sharper how sharp i didn't know.I went back and did coticule 80 laps .checked the edge at it was shiny.Tried shave arm hair result none.At this moment after doing so many laps i was getting mad but i said if i learned how to sharp razor myself then i can finish this test too.
when i check the edge what i didn't like it wasn't sharp enough ,coticule without slurry did take the scratches out that is all.i wasn't care about scratches i wanted this blade to be sharp ready buy using Coricule.
I thought a little and said i go back all other again.May be wasn't patient enough. and i did.
I went back to belgian coticule with heavy slurry and did 70 laps then went back BBW WITH heavy slurry first then i start diluting it did 80 laps.after this i went to the belgian coticule with water.Now checked edge it was sharp . it did cut hair in my arms and did pass hht in 30 year old person hair but didn't pass 6 years old.Now i went to microscope and check the edge.Edge was sharper then before But it had saw tooth edge.
Now i said this test is over for me.
I need to make this blade a little sharper and take saw tooth out. I used Red pasted hanging strop and took all saw tooth out then i used green past finish it up my job.egde was shiny and ok
I have not shave test this blade when i do i will let you know about it.
CONCLUSION WHAT BART WAS SAYING IS RIGHT BBW DOES SHARPEN THE EDGE .how and why i don't know..
It took me 1.45 minutes to do all this .But i did it . although i don't have a lot patience,
if anyone has enough patience to set bevel with BBW OR COTICULE please go head do so. Not me i can't spend all that time to put bevel on blade.My choose will be 1000 grit stone then go to 4k belgian coticule then ESCHER OR NAKAYAMA.
This is works for me and this all i can say.
Thank you Bart for this idea.
ok this is the last pictue
Sham, I know you know what you are doing but here is the routine I learned from Randydance and it works really well no matter which hones I am using.
Edit; In the above I'm referring to setting the bevel. When I use pyramids it is only with the Norton or Shapton pros, not with natural stones.
Which hones do you use? I don't understand why one would use a pyramid with natural hones in theory although I don't understand much about honing anywayQuote:
Originally Posted by JimmyHAD
Lee, when I say I use that method no matter which hones I meant in regard to setting the bevel not in using pyramids. I do use pyramids with both the Norton and the Shapton pro. The 4&8 with the Norton and the 5&8 with the Shap pro. I don't use pyramids with naturals. I should have been more clear and will edit the post. Thanks for pointing that out.Quote:
Originally Posted by hoglahoo
Thanks Jimmy, that makes sense
Jimmy thank for the post i was testing BBW ACTION That is why i was doing all of that laps.
I really don't use pyramids .very rare .i use constantly x pattern honing because of hones size .
A lot of different things going on in this thread...:D
Sham, this method is not just an idea of mine... When I arrived at SRP, Josh Earl was already honing razors with a progression on DMT1200 - BBW/slurry - Coticule/water. He was selling shaveready razors honed with that progression and build quite a reputation on it. He still has a description of that method on his website today. Also Heavydutysg135 (David Polan, the guy in the 9-part video series) knew and used that progression often.
The only thing I did, was changing the DMT-E by a Coticule with slurry. If you accept the method works on a bevel set with a DMT-E, there's no reason to reject it for a bevel set with slurry on a Coticule.
Furthermore, I would never have offered honing services in the classifieds, if I wasn't confident that I could send out keen razors.
All razors I send out have their bevel completed on a Coticule with slurry. Most of them don't see anything else for setting the bevel.
After that it's just what Josh and David learned me, except for doing the diluting slurry thrick. That's something I came up with independently, but I can't imagine that I'm the first one to ever have that idea.
I have used this method on many razors, with 4 different Coticules, that all work just fine for it. So far no one has send one back, complaining that it lacked keenness, although I offer a "no questions asked" guarantee on razors I declare shaveready.
I never use heavy slurry and I never allow a slurry to dry out.
I never go back to a Coticule with slurry, once it has been on the Blue. A Coticule with slurry resets the keenness to its "slurry-level" within only few laps. On the Blue, I always use light slurry, lighter than on the Coticule.
I raise slurry with clean water (no drop of detergent) I have the subjective impression this makes the honing faster. For finishing with water, I do add a drop of detergent to my cup of honing water. I have the subjective impression this makes the hone smoother.
I never use the Coticule dry. I don't like to hone dry.
Bart.
I found on one razor i used yellow slurry it did'nt give a good shaving edge i have always used bbw slurry yellow water. I have just honed two razors with milky slurry on my yellow and diluted down to plain water all in all about 100 laps 30 with slurry. The razors were shaving good i have just tested them both and they actualy shaved better and i would say smoother i was expecting the slurry to round the edge a little and not be as sharp. May be when i first used my yellow the slurry was to dense. When i spoke to steve at invisable he stands by the bbw is the same as the yellow the only differance is the yellow cuts quiker with out all the ins and outs i think hes right.
I have tried setting the bevel on beat up razors with the coticule and slurry. I have tried with a few different stones and a few different razors. I will say IME it can be done but for me it takes too long. If that was all I had then I would use the coticule for that purpose. Having the Shapton 1&2K pro, the Norton 1k and the DMT 1200 I prefer the speed of cutting I get with those stones in that order of choice for which I use.
Bart i have heard this from you that is why i called your idea.i didn't know anyone else has done this progression.which is
setting bevel with coticule with slurry then going to BBW WITH slurry and dilute it slowly to make edge more sharp(this one i heart from you) after this going back again to belgian coticule without slurry just use water.
I mean this whole process .
Now i never said you can't set bevel with coticule even i said some coticule will act same as 4000k.Of course you can set bevel with coticule but it takes forever.
I have no doubts about your honing ability i was just testing method you are saying.I never ever had or said Bart you are or anyone else bad honer etc.
All this conversation was to make sure how BBW effects on razor.
My confusion was you are doing Pyramid with belgian combo(in some way).That is why i was trying to understand this method.that is all.I have and will never had bad feeling or anything else toward anyone .this is only learning in my part and didn't mean to hurt anyone;s feelings.
Sham
Sham, I wasn't offended in any way, and I sure didn't mean to come across that way in my post. We both speak another language than English at home, I think that makes it often difficult to catch, or formulate, the tone of a post correctly. Nothing we can do about that. :shrug:Quote:
Originally Posted by hi_bud_gl
I was merely trying to point out that it is a tried and trued method, that goes back a long way.
I am not saying that it is THE way to hone a razor. But it is A way.
In my post, I was hoping to provide you with the confidence that it really does work, while at the same time paying tribute to the guys that earn the credit for seing the difference between a Coticule with slurry and a Blue with slurry. Josh and David both realized very well that they needed the Blue with slurry for refining and the Yellow with water for finishing.
Setting a bevel on a Coticule with slurry really doesn't take forever.
I use it on seriously convexed bevels, new Dovo's with an odd bevel angle, razors with microchips, etc. I almost always do a downstroke on a glass jar, before doing anything else. This removes all residual shave-ability of an edge. No razor shaves arm hair after that. So when it shaves arm hair again along the entire edge, I know I have completed the bevel. (It only takes popping a few single hairs on my arm, so there's no need for bald arm patches) Anyway, if I get the feeling, after 15 minutes on the Coticule with slurry, that I am getting nowhere, I jump down to a DMT600. But I hardly ever need to do that. Most razors take less than 20 minutes. Some take less than 5 minutes. I never jump down to my DMT1200 because there's just too little speed difference.
About doing a "pyramid" on the Coticule, I don't look upon it that way. In fact I look at a Coticule as a combination hone. You have one hone with slurry, which cuts like a bevel-setter but leaves a better polish than any other bevel setter. And you have another hone with water, which is a very slow finisher.
Bart.