Thread: fast/slow/polisher

I now have 3 coticules one select , one kosher grade, and my newist vintage. i did 50 laps on each with slurry select and kosher seemed to cut the same only slightly turned creamy slurry a tiny bit grey whilst to my surprise mant the vintage which seemed the hardest turned slurry almost purple/dark grey cuts fairly quik. so now i no they do vary some are the same as each other but how do i tell which one polishes the best. I also noticed the tiny vintage when honing on water only down the edge of hone mainly in corners i had to wipe as a dirty substace very light was apearing which made me think this is actual removing visable metal with only plain water not a lot but i noticed it straight away, even though the surfice feel like glass its so smooth. never noticed this on my other yellows.

I sometimes check out the existing scratch pattern on an edge and then do some laps and check it again and see if it is smoothing out. If you really want to assess the cutting power of each coticule do that with each of them with the same amount of laps and razors with close to the same scratch pattern.

The softer coticules will raise a slurry just with honing. For initial honing work, this is a great thing, but for polishing it is not because the hone is constantly releasing more cutting material and effectively acting like a lower grit, non-polishing, hone. It sounds like your vintage hone is in this softer category and is therefore not likely to be a good polisher. A good polisher is harder and is not prone to release slurry when honing with water.

Originally Posted by Utopian

The softer coticules will raise a slurry just with honing. For initial honing work, this is a great thing, but for polishing it is not because the hone is constantly releasing more cutting material and effectively acting like a lower grit, non-polishing, hone. It sounds like your vintage hone is in this softer category and is therefore not likely to be a good polisher. A good polisher is harder and is not prone to release slurry when honing with water.

thats what i have read softer coticules are not good polishers but that is the thing my vintage i have to realy rub it to get a slurry i did 100 passes on it with a customers razor and it did not produce a slurry at all naked to my eye the water just stayed water and it feels very glassy it actualy as a marble looking finish yet it a mazed me when it turned the slurry dark grey purplish i have repeated again it defanatley cuts quiker than my other two.

there is apicture of it on honing section under vintage coticule it is a combo

If I use a slurry on mine, especially a lot of thick slurry, the slurry will turn from a creamy white color into a dark gray color after it gets enough metal in the slurry. If I use it with just water, light gray lines will appear on the surface of the hone, but they wipe off easily. The lines let me know that I am keeping my stroke fairly consistent and that some kind of progress is being made. I'm not sure what that says about the hardness of it, but what you say about yours seems to be what happens with mine sometimes.

well i made slurry on all 3 the same, and my vintage cut quikest and slurry turned dar grey my other two no where near the slurry had a tint of grey thats all and no lines of swarf at all but what you describe as wipes of easy same thing on my hone and it wiped of with my fingers which makes believe its my fastest cutter and also coticules do vary yet my other two are moraless the identical in the way they hone. having said that the vintage worked great on my bismark with slurry and with out

i supose i could just hone my razor on the 4k and try each coticule chek scratches and see what happens then go 4k again and try next coti and see which one reduces scrathpattern the best. Other than that i have polished with each one and never noticed any thing bad so they must be ok. after slurry honing and then i finished on water i have to say depite people saying slurry can dull the razor shaved well maybe not ultra sharp but i have to say first time i have honed on yellow slurry then water i usauly use bbw slurry then yellow water the shave was very smooth i think for defanat the yellow with slurry then water gives a very smooth comfortable shave.