Thread: "Touching Up" Guidelines?

Originally Posted by Ryan82

Yeah, you're probably right. I just keep hearing that Shapton 16k calling my name, or is that an escher, or a Swaty, or ........

Must be the esher, or Swaty calling. The Shapton doesn't need to call out to anyone. It just is.
ohmmmm....

OK, so here's the deal-0 I tried to use my Coticule with water to touch up an edge, and it just didn't feel good at all. It cut, sure enough, but not comfortable. I gave that edge three passes on a barber's hone and it felt like magic. Just whisked away the whiskers. Is that normal? I think I gave the blade 10 laps on the cot...should I have tried more?

I did strop after the cot, and NOT the barber. Maybe my stopping is weak.

I'm no expert but I think the coticule is a very slow cutter compare to a barber hone. You should probably try about 40 passes on the coticule with plain water.

Well, it depends on the razor and the coticule as they each cut differently. I suppose the next time you need to do a touch up you should try more strokes if you want to use the coticule. Three strokes for a barber hone is normal. Who knows how many strokes will work for your coticule? Obviously it's more than 10!
Just keep trying more strokes and test shaving till you figure it out. You might find that you need to go back to slurry and then to water. On the other hand, if you barber hone is doing the job, you could just stick with that.

I am convinced that barber hones (the finishers) do not remove much (material) like other hones, but they simply burnish the edge... similar to what a "steel" does to a kitchen knife.

I think defanatly need a good 50 on coticule won't do any harm . I'd do 50 bbw then coti 50 defanatley works .

50 with slurry on BBW and then yellow or 50 BBW without slurry and just water?

bbw slurry yellow just water or slurry light slurry try and see what works best for you

Here's where I've come to after playing around for a few years - FWIW. When the performance of an edge starts to diminish, I go 5-10 laps on chrom ox. This usually brings it back to peak. I can usually do this 3-5 times. When that stops working, I go to the Chinese 12K for 30-50 laps, then the chrom ox for 5-10 laps. If that isn't getting the job done, I go back to the Norton 8K for 5-10 laps, then back up through the Chinese and chrom ox. I've been very happy with this set up for the past few months. I've had mixed results with the coticule and other natural stones. I should also point out that I haven't taken the time to methodically explore the way some of you have.

Jordan

Jordan, your progression sounds just like mine, but with different stones. I use the same chrome routine, bringing the edge back until you finally need to hit the stones