Thread: Coticule dulling razor?

Hate to mention, but don't you guys feel there is a different touch using a softy like bbw, aoto, -muddy middle stones, etc?

I do and think I have a tendency after a long polish effort on a mid stone to start out on a hard finish using the same touch. Seem to loose some sharpness.

Maybe that's not it. But if i loose shrpnes I turn it into its edge well and scrub back and forth 5 or 6 before flipping. After i start seeing metal I ease off into regular diagonal Xs.

Loosing sharpness is loosing your angle.

I think bevel is somehow different from the soft stone, so if you start on the finisher like it was a single stone, (all my finish stones will cut) with some resculpting to the new stone's hard profile

Ok, so I just worked the razor again. Just a reminder, the last thing I did was add tape, dmt 10 light strokes, bbw 75 strokes with slurry, coticule 110 strokes with water (under running water), 100 strokes on chinese 12k, stropped 60 times on leather, 60 more in the morning, stated a good shave, pretty happy with the edge, but halfway through I did 20 strokes on a hanging chromium oxide pasted strop, and had an even better edge/shave.

So, just now, I added the tape back and took to the coticule per Bart's advice regarding hitting the coticule after higher grit stones, in my case the chinese 12k. Before I started, the razor was pretty sharp IMO, passing the TPT nicely and popping my leg hair more or less the way I like (I have razors that are a touch better, but really it was doing pretty good).

So I hit the coticule, again under running water. 30 strokes at a time. After the first 30, not a big difference. I think there was a marginal improvement, but it was pretty close to tell for sure. Did 30 more, 60 total, still seems pretty good. I thought at this point it might have been another marginal improvement, but really still too close to tell (this is still per my tests which include TPT and popping leg hair above skin level near the ends of the hair). 30 more strokes, 90 total, at this point exactly I noticed it was significantly duller. This was the turning point for the worse. No longer popping leg hair reliably, and starting to not pass the TPT to my liking. This is basically the point that I'm normally at after 30 or so strokes on the coticule with water when I'm hitting it after the BBW with slurry. This time it took 90 to get to this point after coming off the chinese 12k, vs 30 strokes when coming off the BBW with slurry. I did 30 more strokes, 120 total, it's marginally worse yet, really starting to not even pass the TPT at all. 33 more strokes and I call it quits at 153 total strokes (did 3 extra by accident, got in the groove, lol). At this point, it literally is not passing the TPT. I can use medium-light pressure and pass my entire thumb pad down the blade (I did this) and not get cut. By medium-light, I mean a 2-3/10 pressure wise with 1 being the lightest possible pressure and 10 being how hard you might feel comfortable pressing on a butter knife. To me, this unacceptable for the TPT. I can't even do this coming off the DMT 1200. The DMT 1200 will even cut my thumb pad deep with a "1" pressure for only 1/4" length.

So I'm really frustrated at this point. I grab out the norton and DMT 1200, pull the tape off and I'm THIS close to setting a new bevel without tape, and honing up to the norton 8k to try shaving off of that to compare. But something held me back and I said, well if I'm going to set a new bevel anyway, let me go play with the smooth cotton and latigo strops.

So I do. I get at the smooth cotton and hit it for 60 laps. Very noticeably improvement in the edge, now passing the TPT again nicely and starting to shave my arm again nicely, and pop leg hairs. What the hell I say, another 40 laps, total 100. A marginal improvement, still performing very nicely. Another 20, no real improvement, but no degredation either. I'm really starting to be very very happy with this edge. Hit the latigo for 60 passes, marginal improvement. 40 more passes for giggles, didn't get any real further improvement to speak of. And that's where I left it. The edge is really to my liking. Feels similar to coming off the 12k. I can't wait to shave with it in the morning and see what happens. I'm very excited about this, but I'm also a bit confused as to why and how the cotton had such a dramatic positive impact?

And of course, now as I write this, I realize that Bart only said to hit 20-30 strokes or so when coming down from the high grit stone, whoops!! Botched that one.. I'll still give that another shot another time, but I can pretty much guess where I might be at since I did check at 30 laps. The sharpness here for me seemed to actually level off at ~60 as I noted above, but this may even be in line with Bart's suggestion as my hone is smaller and may require more laps than his. In the future, I probably should have stopped there and then hit the cotton/latigo. I can only imagine how that might have been

Anyway, I'll keep everyone posted again on the shave. Sorry that this post got so long, I'm just rambling on thinking about eating my dinner which is now ready Man, I'm really getting into this honing/testing thing too!

Pjrage,

Great post, thanks for sharing. I don't really know what to make of the results. You definitely did too many laps on the Coticule with water, but on most Coticules that would only be very slightly detrimental on extremely sharp edges, and on some very hard and fine Coticules, it would not even have any negative effect.
I don't know anything about the Chinese 12K, so I can't offer any insight on how the Coticule would deal with the edge left by it.

I like your experimental nature.

Originally Posted by Croaker

Very interesting thread. I use the BBW followed by yellow coticule for most of my honing, with good results. Like pjrage, I notice that my razor seems sharper after the blue than after a few laps with the coticule. BUT, I would like to ask pjrage how he strops. My razors will seldom pass the HHT off the coticule, but as soon as I do 40 passes on linen, they do , and with ease. Then, I finish with 50 strokes on the leather. The hairs fall apart and float when I do the HHT after the leather. Have you tried stropping on linen first off the coticule, before going to leather? I get very smooth and pretty close shaves that way.

This is hitting nails on the head, sir. I believe the first stropping session after honing, is one of the most underestimated parts of the entire sharpening process. I have been saying that in various post lately, and I'm glad to find some confirmation in your post.

Bart.

If you're happyy with the way the 12k feels why not just go directly to that and skip the coticule? You could always also finish on the cr0 for added smoothness.

Just noticed that I'm up to 601 posts! Woot woot

Originally Posted by Dups

If you're happyy with the way the 12k feels why not just go directly to that and skip the coticule? You could always also finish on the cr0 for added smoothness.

Just noticed that I'm up to 601 posts! Woot woot

I'm trying to experiment with the coticule. Everyone seems to hold them in high regard, so I was very curious when it seemed to dull the razor instead of give it this great edge everyone else seems to get. I know I could just go to the 12k and get what I'm looking for, but I'm thinking a) what the heck is going on with my coticule and b) is there something even better out there that I'm missing and haven't found yet? Does it involve the coticule?

Originally Posted by Croaker

Very interesting thread. I use the BBW followed by yellow coticule for most of my honing, with good results. Like pjrage, I notice that my razor seems sharper after the blue than after a few laps with the coticule. BUT, I would like to ask pjrage how he strops. My razors will seldom pass the HHT off the coticule, but as soon as I do 40 passes on linen, they do , and with ease. Then, I finish with 50 strokes on the leather. The hairs fall apart and float when I do the HHT after the leather. Have you tried stropping on linen first off the coticule, before going to leather? I get very smooth and pretty close shaves that way.

Similar experience here when I was using a China12k Not quite as sharp after final polish but perfect post stropping. I think Bart & others have mentioned that a well polished edge relies less on its 'teeth to cut hair' and more on it's fineness to penetrate the cuticle.

Proper stropping sure makes a difference. Loads of passes on the linen side followed by plain leather will help any razor.

For those of you keeping up on my adventures...

My morning shave with this razor was great. Might be the best that the edge on this blade has been yet. Edged out the chinese 12k finish. It was a bit smoother, but just as sharp as the 12k finish. I didn't even hit the chromium oxide again (had hit it before, but figure whatever it did was gone after 153 strokes on the coticule). Sharp enough and nice and smooth, it really was very good. I almost want to stop playing now If I had to rate the edge out of 10 vs what I imagine the best it could be would be, I might give it an 8. For reference, straight off the coticule I would rate a 5, a 5.5 if I add 20x on chromium oxide. Coticule then 12k finish rates a 7, plus 20x chromium oxide rates a 7.5.

I really don't know if this good edge/shave was because of the coticule, or because of the high number of strokes on smooth cotton after honing, or simply by having done the chinese 12k, then going back to the coticule? I'm still surprised that the TPT basically wasn't passing, then I hit the smooth cotton and suddenly not only is the TPT passing but I was very happy with the edge and now I got a great shave with it too. Can't say I'm not scratching my head here But I'm also pretty pleased.

We'll see how curious I get tonight and see what I try next. I'm not even sure where to head now that I'm pretty happy. I still want to do some more comparisons, though, and then try to repeat this edge. I also want to find out what's up the with the coticule and whether or not it had anything to do with this or if it only dulled the razor and made it harder to get to this point, and without it I might have been even better off

Anyway, some things I want to try:

-Shave straight off the norton 8k with this razor to compare to the shave straight off the coticule
-Try much less laps (20 or so maybe) on the coticule after bbw with slurry then shave
-Try to repeat the current edge by going bbw with slurry, 150 laps coticule, 120 laps smooth cotton
-Try bbw with slurry, 100+ laps coticule, 100 laps chinese 12k, 20-30 laps coticule, shave
-Shave straight off the bbw with slurry

Rich (zib) had messaged me to ask me about my stone because I guess there are all different types, some especially suited for razors and others not as much. I told him what I know of it, that it's a vintage stone, at least 50 years old according to the seller. The seller is an ebay seller who sells some straights as shave ready and other shaving stuff from time to time. I've also bought a shave ready straight from him, skeptical on it's shave readiness when I bid on it, but it was in fact shave ready when I received and shaved with it, so the guy at least knows something about straights. I know he had honed razors with this stone, but I'm not sure his true opinion of it. He said he had bought it on ebay in pretty much unrecognizable condition, cleaned it up, lapped it, used it, and then I guess he sold it. For all I know he sold it because he wasn't too impressed with it? Or maybe he has another dozen coticules and didn't need this one? I'm not sure. Anyway, it's 4x2, coticule glued to a BBW. Rich asked me to scratch it to see if it was soft feeling or hard, and IMO it's very hard. Scratching it feels similar to scratching the chinese 12k. My nail definitely doesn't dig in at all. I'm not sure exactly what this means about the coticule but figured I would post the details here.

I just had my first shave directly from a coticule (Wapi razor, around 100 laps on BBW side with increasingly diluted slurry, then 100 on the coticule side with only water.) My coti seems to be the harder type.

Was probably my most effortless shave yet. First pass WTG removed just about everything. For the first time ever I went straight to ATG (XTG just seemed pointless to do) then a touch up to the jawline to finish.

A wonderful balance between sharpness and smoothness. I'd be happy to shave like that every day.

Originally Posted by Croaker

Very interesting thread. I use the BBW followed by yellow coticule for most of my honing, with good results. Like pjrage, I notice that my razor seems sharper after the blue than after a few laps with the coticule. BUT, I would like to ask pjrage how he strops. My razors will seldom pass the HHT off the coticule, but as soon as I do 40 passes on linen, they do , and with ease. Then, I finish with 50 strokes on the leather. The hairs fall apart and float when I do the HHT after the leather. Have you tried stropping on linen first off the coticule, before going to leather? I get very smooth and pretty close shaves that way.

i find exactly what your saying my razor after linen and then leather pass hht but not straight of the yellow coti thats if it is honed fully.