Thread: Finishing Threesome

I'd like to try a soft one just to see how fast they can cut

Originally Posted by DwarvenChef

Sounds like what I've been doing with my Oohira and coti... next will be the Kitayama But I only do 10-20 laps on each stone and I get the smoothest shaves, so far

My coti is a bonded combi and a soft fast cutter, I would love to come across a hard slow to feel the difference. But the next one I order will be the Kitayama or equivilent.

Oh just go out and buy yourself a Nakayama, we all know you want to!

Originally Posted by gary haywood

I'd like to try a soft one just to see how fast they can cut

Me too, but I tend to prefer using natural stones for polishing. I've never handled a truly soft coticule before, I have a feeling my coticule now and a real soft one will be like night and day. I must say I am curious.

Originally Posted by ChrisL

Does anyone have any "soft" Thuringians that cut very fast?

Chris L

I've got an Escher 'light green' that cuts fast yet is still fine. It has the end label designating color and came in a box that is labeled "Barber's Delight". It is the fastest of the Escher/Thuringans that I have.

Originally Posted by gary haywood

I have 5x3 coti from howard it is realy light with pink swirls in it and that one cuts fairly well not rapid but quiker than my others if i use pressure they all remove metal fairly quik circles and back and forth strokes the slurry turns grey quik. If i hone on slurry i can bearly shave if i do 100 laps on coti water i can shave much better so coti with water must sharpen razor and polish

My 8x3 natural came from Howard a year and a half or so ago. A friend bought it from Howard but decided he preferred synthetics and sold it to me.

It also is light colored with pink swirls. A great cutter and believe it or not I've never created slurry on it. I don't have the heart to rub the stone on it. I use slurry on the blue side and water on the yellow.

Hey Dave,
It is truely satisfying, finding a natural stone progression, as well as a finisher that work well. Ive done so myself, with a number of natural stone progressions and find it immensely satisfying.
Congrats man!

Thanks,

Mac

Originally Posted by StraightRazorDave

Oh I have enough hones....I have a full set of Shaptons now!! I've only had them for about a week so I'm still getting to know them, but I'm definitely all set up in terms of hones. I don't have a problem getting a razor shave ready anymore, especially with the new Shaptons it's pretty easy, but I really do think I over-do my finishing. I guess I want to be SURE it's doing something so I throw in a bunch of extra laps.

Looking back at how many laps you I did and after what you said...I think I did WAY too many! Haha, oh well, to live and to learn. I used that many laps on a Boker today and it was shave-ready, so I probably would get the same results if I had just done about 50 laps on my Nakayama with just water. But I like to experiment and learn from my mistakes.

Thanks for the advice.

Hi Dave,
Congrats on what sounds like dream setup. I sure you will get them down in short order. Before you know it you wil have found out several ways to a common end and picking the best ones for sure.

Mike

The title of this thread is highly misleading

How does the hardness compare between your hard coticule and nakayama?

It would be kinda cool to have a mohs test set of scribers.

Great thread.

I would think there's a lot of redundancy in the progression mentioned in the first post. But if you have the hones, and you like using them all in the same honing sequence, I don't mind being wrong with that opinion.

On Coticules, in my experience so far, only two issues can cause a Coticule to fail as a finisher.
One is a defect. If the stone is contaminated with one or more small chunks of quartz, it wont work well on razors. Some Coticule layers have quartz contamination, that's why the people of Ardennes Coticule really keep an open eye for it. If by great exception one would escape their attention, I am very sure they would replace it immediately.
The second issue is with very soft Coticules. It's rare, but some Coticules are so soft they will generate slurry from the contact with the razor. These are always very fast hones. The issue can be fixed by finishing under a slowly running tap.
All other Coticules I ever tried (not counting, but I'm talking about 40-50 hones, both standard and select grade, various sizes and shapes) have always been excellent finishers. I can't feel the differences on my face, and I don't believe that anyone else can either.

About overhoning. It seems to me the term is used for several conditions. Sometimes, lower level scratches can turn up as strange anomalies during the finer stages in a honing progression...
With enough pressure, anyone can tear the fragile edge of a razor apart on any hone.
But using the X-stroke (or one of the variations) with normal light pressure, I haven't overhoned an edge even while doing a 1000 laps on a Cotilcule, or doing several 100's on a Nakayama, or similar lap counts on the Naniwa Chosera10K (a synthetic hone). The only wire edges I have raised so far, were on DMT-E, and they rather quickly dissolved while honing on a BBW with slurry. If you get StraightRazorDave's excellent results, why worry about something that most guys who rely on natural hones have never met?

Care to try reversing that "finishing threesome" progression and see what edge that delivers?

Best regards, and cheers for the fine results,

Bart.

reading along here I get the impression that it is assumed that a finish stone must be a slow stone; why?

I have never heard anywhere of high quality japan finish stone refered to as slow.

Pressure has something to do with it. If i touch down on a razor with asagi stone it will show black instantly. Using light touch = not so much. This to me does not make for a slow stone. it's just light pressure on a fast cutting finisher that is somewhere between 16 and 30k+