Quote Originally Posted by smythe View Post
Sorry to be a pain about this Bart... maybe I missed it... but I don't remember reading anything on this forum that suggest the average barber hone being a faster cutter than the average coticule waterstone, with water only.

Could you or anyone shed some light on this?
It is often reported that barber hones are very prone to cause a wire edge. The way I look at honing, that suggests that they can be pretty aggresive cutters, relative to their grit. SRP member Johnny J used to do his entire honing on a selection of barber hones (I don't know if he still does it)
Here's the key post out of a very interesting thread of his:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/246647-post66.html

While I further have zero experience with barber hones, I do know something about Coticules.
When used with water, they're among the slowest hones I ever came accross. 10 laps on a Coticule with water only works on a razor with a narrow bevel and at the very first signs of edge deterioration. Otherwise it takes more than that, and often, touching up on a Coticule with water literally doesn't cut it at all. It think that is because it is such a pure polisher in "water mode". Great to remove scratches left by previous hones, but pretty lame for removing solid steel, in order to refine the bevel tip. That is also the reason why a Coticule with water only performs its magic on edges that are already very keen.
Dylandog was about to do some experiments on seeking keenness off a barber hone prior to finsishing it on his Coticule. I don't know how it turned out. I may have missed it when he reported results, or maybe it just didn't work and he trashed the whole idea.

Maybe I'm wrong with correlating the ability to produce a wire edge, with abrasive power. But I sure know that 3 to 5 laps on a Coticule with water isn't going to resort much effect at all, upon touching-up a razor, while it seems the general consensus of laps to do for touching up on a barber hone.

Best regards,
Bart