Thread: Leo's Daddy Learns to Hone (picture heavy)

Originally Posted by olafurson

The Emerald Wapienica razor, originally honed by Maximilian. Prior to this saga, Junior the Barber told me the razor was dull, and I had noticed some pulling when shaving, so I agreed. Razor could still pass the arm hair test, though:

This tells me that the edge just needed to be refreshed; therefore yellow side w/water only. I personally use the blue side for more abrasive work like resetting a bevel or working an unrefined edge. Not that this work cannot be done with either side, it is just my preference. From your original post it seems that the edge was refined but not up to par. Using the blue side more than likely dulled the edge, esp. with using slurry on the blue. Slurry the yellow, silly rabbit. The edge should be able to shave coming off of the blue.


Coticules are a bit funny when compared to a Norton. The edges do not behave the same in terms of tests and such. The HHT (from what I understand) isnt so easy off of a coticule because of the lack of 'teeth' on the bevel and edge. Yeah, you will probably need more laps on the yellow. I use around 20-30 or so to ensure i am getting a good edge on a refresh ... depending on the stone. YMMV and all the other message board caveats do apply.

Did I mention light pressure ?

One more thing to try for fun ... try honing with the edge of the blade at a 45 deg. angle (heel leading) instead of straight across the hone. Sort of like what was happening when you were toe leading.

Nice stone, btw. Looks like a keeper to me.

It does look like a beautiful stone to be sure.

You have all the best stuff my friend. If you stumble across any wondrous tips, feel free to share them with me

Well Done Sir!
My Advice:
Welcome to Coticule.be - home of the famous Belgian Coticule Whetstone

Thats all you need Sir, IMHO of course

Thats a Wapi right? How/who did that etching for you?

Originally Posted by Scipio

Thats a Wapi right? How/who did that etching for you?

Joe Chandler did the etching, and the rescaling of my Wapi in stabilized Emerald box elder burl with a genuine emerald gemstone implanted (by my wife's uncle, the jeweller) in the pre-ban elephant ivory spacer.

I dunno how he did it, I think he used his laser x-ray heat vision or something.

Thats one cusomised blade!

The etching - was it expensive? I know were not allowed to discuss costs, so just a yes/no!?

Id like something similar done

Originally Posted by Scipio

Id like something similar done

Wanna buy it? It's a little dull right now...

Originally Posted by olafurson

Wanna buy it? It's a little dull right now...

And whose fault is that my friend...

By the way, I love that little Vulfix brush. Still working on getting over the smell of the other one

I think you should've used much more time on the blue, with just water, keeping there until arm hairs easily cut, before going to the yellow side w/ slurry & finally yellow w/ just h2o.

The Belgian stones can benefit from lapping, too-so if u do go ahead and get some diamond hones for edge establishing they can be used to nearly perfectly flatten the Belgian stones.

Have plenty of patience, & you'll be there before u know it.

Originally Posted by olafurson

Tape has never been used on any of my razors except the Aquanin American, which was originally honed by Bart, and re-honed by Aquanin when he was annoyed to find that Bart had used several layers of tape.

Not sure what razor you are talking about, but for the record: In the vast majority of cases I use no tape to hone a razor. The exceptions are old wedges, but only if they require tape to get the bevel angle above 16 degrees. That is a very specific use of tape, that I never do without talking to the owner of the razor. Now, I just spend almost half an hour of my precious time, doing a full text search for a "Aquanin" in my archived PM's and my e-mail inbox. I found nothing. Sorry to find out from a man I don't know, that another man I don't know, was "annoyed" that I used tape to hone a razor, I might or might not have honed for a third guy.

Now, let's try to offer some help.
What you tried will only work on a razor that already shaves well. A BBW is a very slow hone, even with slurry on top. If anyone ever used a pasted hanging strop on that edge, there will be a bit of an arced curve in the razors bevel. Regardless how minimal that "belly" might be, your light strokes on a BBW with thin slurry will take you 1000's of laps to reestablish flat bevel faces. And yet you need dead flat bevel faces before the very edge can touch the hones and gain any keenness. What you've done so far, is pushing the edge through a film of slurry, and you indeed might have lost some sharpness, while at the same time you weren't gaining any, because the very edge was sailing marginally above the surface.

Establishing flat bevel faces is generally referred to as "bevel setting" on SRP, although I prefer the term "bevel correction". I don't recommend the Belgian Blue for that, although, with a denser slurry and some pressure, it can be done. But you have a Coticule, and with slurry and a tiny bit of pressure, that one will be much faster of perfecting the bevel on that razor. If you don't have the patience, or the confidence in my advice, to try it, you could better go to the Norton 4K, which will be much faster than your current method on the BBW. There are other members much more experienced talking you through that than I, so I'll leave it here as an option.
Back to the Coticule. You need a milk-like slurry on top.
Next you need to hone with some pressure, enough to make the slurry starting to turn gray within 10 strokes. During this stage, I place a finger on top of the blade for some additional pressure (no more than what the muscles of the finger can provide - no bearing down with the wrist). I also use "half" strokes. These are what it says, I rub back and forth 20 times doing only one side of the X-stroke, without flipping. Next I flip and do 20 on the other side of the razor. Once the bevel is flat, revert back to regular X's without finger pressure. 30 laps later you're ready to move to the next stage.
But how can you tell when the bevel is flat? I start out with dragging the edge, without any pressure, once over a glass bottle. The razor won't shave any arm hair now, but as soon as the bevel is flat, it won't need more than a few laps to start shaving again. So all you need to do is stay on slurry till the edge shaves again along its entire length. No doubt now, that the bevel is ready, which is an absolute condition to do anything meaningful during the next steps. Don't ever allow the slurry to become denser than that milk-like consistency, cause thick slurry will prevent your edge from becoming shaving sharp.
That is also why the next stage involves thinning out the slurry with additional drops of water. This must be done gradually, a few drops per 20 laps. Once the slurry on the Coticules is washed down to almost clear water, your razor will be much sharper already. Now is the time to turn it over to that nice BBW side. Raise a thin slurry on the BBW (a misty purple hint is enough) and hone on the BBW for 50 or 100 laps. It's a slow process, there is no risk of wasting steel at this stage of the process. Keep the slurry thin, but don't hone on the BBW with water only. Use light laps, but not your very lightest. Finally, take the razor to the Coticule side again, clean pure water this time, and finish your work with 60 of your lightest laps. That's it.

Best regards,
Bart.

PS. I responded to your e-mail yesterday, advising the Unicot method, which is easier, but somehow I have the idea that you reject the use of a layer of tape. The above method will give you comparable results, if your honing stroke is up to it.