Here we go again... coticule thread

[Bart]

I'm also playing around w/ using a bit of pressure on water after coming off the slurry (similar to when starting out on slurry), then backing off to normal pressure as soon as I feel the edge start to bite. Feedback is great. From there, light->ultra-light laps on water & 10-20 ultra light laps on lather to finish.

That's an interesting approach. SRP member Rajagra (if I'm not mistaken) mentioned something similar a while back. He (and I too) believes that the blade would flex a bit under the pressure. When you release the pressure, it flexes back on the very tip, which allows that tip to easily gain additional sharpness. In its very essence, the trick with the layer of tape aims for the same: to divert all honing power to the very tip to the bevel, exactly where the sharpness resides.
I think it's a sound idea, and when I find more time, I surely am going to experiment with it too.

Best regards,
Bart.

[PA23-250]

Just test-shaved my TI--one of the closest shaves I've ever gotten from it, entirely without pasting! When shaving though, it was weird: it felt very smooth, but "less sharp" than before. In fact, I could see more stubble remaining after each pass, which lead me to do too much touching up--to the point where, w/ synthetic stones, I'd have irritated myself severely. Here the bay rum burnt a little more than usual, but it wasn't that bad. (The smoothness of these edges continues to amaze me. My face feels great now.

(I later remembered I'd gotten a very close shave yesterday w/ my wedge, so that phenomenon is normal for me (the subsequent shave seeming less close while actually shaving.) After shaving though, it was BBS!
This was my always-wants-to-be-pasted blade, too. I'm starting to wonder if I actually need to use crox anymore... So far, the edges off the stone have been superior once I changed my technique slightly. We will see.

[gary haywood]

I can onestly say i get great shaves of the yellow coticules with ease due to barts methods. I tryed naniwas tonight for a change but now i'm use to coti i will stick with the belgiums. Just having to mess about from one hone to another then clean them up and put them back and noing which hone to go back to if the shave is'nt quite there at least with coti you can just go back to fine slurry and start again. Just orderd a very fast cutting coticule from bart he tryed and tested it so that should help set my bevels if needed.

[Howard]

Are you working under magnification? The naked eye can't really see what's going on at this level. Using a Radio Shack 60x illuminated microscope can change everything. There are all kinds of possibilities why you're getting the results you're getting. Is the bevel set? Is it flat or rounded (I hear they're calling that an "apple seed" bevel now). You want flat. 80 - 90% of the work in honing a blade is getting the bevel ground correctly. After that it's all polishing that narrow little bevel on finer and finer hones. The coticule should, on a well ground bevel, give you a much better shave than off of a Norton 8k.

[gary haywood]

I use aloop 30k that works well with loads of light i've tryed microscopes and i crn't seem to get on with them. Under magnification my loop i look for nice flat bevel pains ans check the cutting edge for nice straight line no jaged bits or tiny micro chips whic i can normaly feel with my thumb. I can easily tellthe differance in scratch pattern from 1k to 4k after that i find it gets harder to tell on finer grits i will have to get microscope from radio shack any chance of sending us the link of what you recomend . I move on at 1k level as soon as the edge grips my thumb and holds and does not slide along the edge and i can shave arm hair i presume this is a godd indicator. I get good shaves of naniwas but i think i just like using the coticule now a days as i only hone for my self and not other people maybe thats all i need unless i have a chip edge or realy dull one

[FloorPizza]

That's an interesting approach. SRP member Rajagra (if I'm not mistaken) mentioned something similar a while back. He (and I too) believes that the blade would flex a bit under the pressure. When you release the pressure, it flexes back on the very tip, which allows that tip to easily gain additional sharpness. In its very essence, the trick with the layer of tape aims for the same: to divert all honing power to the very tip to the bevel, exactly where the sharpness resides.
I think it's a sound idea, and when I find more time, I surely am going to experiment with it too.

Best regards,
Bart.

I found that using a bit of pressure then relaxing off to weight-of-blade worked very well on the Shaptons, too. Sometimes, it seemed like the Shaptons would just flat out refuse to start abrading a blade until you forced it to with a bit of pressure. After that, you could relax to zero pressure and the Shapton would give you great "OK, I'm still working here" feedback until it was done, at which point you'd get the same "nothing's getting done here" feedback you got at the start. That was one nice thing about the Shaps... great feedback.