Thread: Coti/BBW success

Hey all,

So trying to keep it simple and save money, I'm getting rid of most of my hones and doing all my honing on my newly acquired coti/bbw and slurry stone. They are both natural combos, so no glue here!

I'm not going to go into the details, but I dulled the edge of a razor on an edge of a glass (so it didn't shave ANYTHING), and took it through the stages with just using my coti/bbw. I re-set the bevel using the coti with heavy slurry, this took a while, then did a whole load of laps on the BBW side with a light slurry. Then finisher it off with a bunch of laps on the coti side with just water. I stopped on linen and leather, and had a GREAT shave! Very smooth and sharp.

Since this was the ONLY hone I used throughout the entire progression, it took a fair number of laps. It's hard to say how many laps on the coti with heavy slurry since I used diagonal strokes, Japanese style strokes, circles, and regular X-strokes to set the bevel. But with the BBW and light slurry, I did about 200 laps. Then I did about 200 laps on the coti with just plain water. Those might seem like huge number, but it's not a very big stone, so it can easily need twice as many as someone with a longer stone. It's 12.5 cm x 4cm.

It left a nice even finish on the bevel, but more importantly it was sharp, as the shave told me.

Just wanted to share my little success story. You really can get by with just one hone, and I think I've found it. It does take more laps than using synthetic stones (Shaptons for example.....), but you really make more of a connection using natural stones. It's very relaxing and spiritual knowing that you're using something formed naturally inside the earth, well I think of it that way anyways.

Not that it makes much of a functional difference, but I really wanted a natural combo stone and slurry stone. It was so much more appealing knowing that it really is one piece of rock, and it was mined that way. There's something very appealing to that.

Anways, I was very happy with the sharpeness and smoothness that using a belgian alone provided me. I think I will give this razor a few laps on my Nakayama to see if it improves!! Oh, the things natural stones can do.

Dave

P.S. Here are a couple of pictures of my new honing progression.

Congrats Dave,
The coti combo is my next hone in line to play with. Nice to see that one stone can do so much.
I like the slower stones, so this should be a fun experience for me.

Thanks,

Mac

Great work and a nice little stone (You slurry stone is HUGE).
If it's worth anything to you, your combo looks like it came from the "La Petite Blanche" layer. A combo with faint streaks of blue showing up at the narrow side of the yellow, is very typical for that layer.

You should be able to keep that edge going for a very long time by just doing 30-50 laps on water every 10 shaves or so (or at the earliest signs of edge deterioration).


Bart.

As said from me and well done
if you checkout Sirt Barts website (link in his sig above) you will find a step by step "Unicot" method for honing with your coti, IMHO you will not produce a sharper smoothet edge

I am with you Dave. Since getting the Belgian combo, my other hones did not see any action *at all*. Out of vanity reasons, I got me a Charnley forest as a finisher but the combo can really be all one needs.

Beautiful stone Dave. I love natural coticules. Especially those that are not glued although the glued variety is just as good. I have used that method of the coti/bbw alone with success just for the experiment of setting the bevel with heavy slurry on the yellow but TBH I go to my Naniwa 1k for the bevel setting 99% of the time. Less work and if I am following the bevel setting honing on a bbw/yellow I will still end up with the characteristic smooth feel for the shave.

I'm the same i use just coticule dmt 1200 if i have to rebuild the bevel /i'm getting the sharpest and smootest edges ever with dilucot method thanks to bart and his methods all barts method work i just prefer that one tryed them all unicot method is exallant and so quik and easy very consistant. i sold most of my other stones. I'm glad you like the hone dave it was hard to part with that coticule!!

Thanks for the comments, I will indeed put these stones to good use. I still need more practice with it, but it really has replaced a complete progression of hones.

Bart, thanks for the info about the "Le Petit Blanche" layer. Both the stones have that blue line running around the yellow layer, but they are both VERY different. The coticule on the slurry seems to cut much faster (since it's so huge, I actually tried honing on it, and it is big enough to do so if you're careful ) and it creates a slurry very quickly when rubbed on the other stone. So it makes quite an effective slurry stone.

Gary, this is a great stone. I love it!

I still have my Nakayama to finish on, but the razor I shaved with last night (honed entirely using the coti/BBW) shaved JUST fine finishing on just the coticule (no pastes either btw). The Nakayama does leave a nice edge, but the coticule-finished edge really does leave nothing to be desired IMO. I'm starting to realize the potential of using the coticule for all of your honing. Well, I used the BBW too, but I think it would be a shame not to considering I have these lovely combo stones!

So anyone can easily get by with just one coticule to hone and maintain very comfortable shaving edges. I'm not against using synthetics by any means, but there is definitely more than one path to a sharp and comfortable razor.

I've worked on a couple more razors using my new coti/bbw. The one I did last night I am VERY proud of.

It was shave-ready, but the only one of my handful of razors honed with 1 layer of tape. I'm not the biggest fan of using tape, so I decided to reset the bevel with no tape. To make sure all my sharpness came from my coti (and not from the previous bevel), I dulled the edge on the edge of a glass, and begin to reset the bevel. After some time, I completely reset the bevel along the entire edge. The marker test on the coti w/ just water and the TNT test confirmed this. Just to be safe, I did a bunch of light laps on the coti with fresh slurry to make up for any damage done by the TNT.

I then created a light slurry on the BBW (with the BBW side of the slurry stone), and did about 100 laps. Then added a bit of water, did another 50 laps, added a bit of water and did 50 more. After the slurry was pretty much gone, I rinsed the stone off, and did 50 more laps on the BBW with just water. Then I did about 150-200 (don't remember exactly) laps on the coti with just plain water. I then finished it off with about 75-100 laps on my Nakayama with just water. I stropped 50 times on linen, and about 100 on leather. The shave was good! Very sharp and smooth, absolutely no complaints.

So I took a totally dull razor that needed a bevel reset and honed it entirely on my coti/bbw and Nakayama. I didn't have great success with an all-natural progression in the past, but I think I'm finally getting the hang of it, with these stones at least.

Agree completely. I now have two very similar looking coticules, with somewhat different sharpening characteristics, and use them for everything, from setting a bevel to final polish (though my C12K does seem to smooth things out -- still experimenting). One my of coticules, with a good slurry, cuts much faster than my 1K Norton.

More coticules soon on the way!