Good day, Gentlemen!

I'm taking a day or two in between honing sessions (and shaves) to digest all the information in this thread and in my PM's. Here are my initial thoughts of the day, for anyone who cares.

First, I appreciate all the advice and encouragement. Clearly honing is a skill better taught in person, but I'll muddle through the best I can with videos and forum responses. Understand that, being the scientist I am, it's my nature to postulate, experiment, conclude, revise, and re-postulate.

I have no problem swallowing pride and admitting error, but I also prefer to make my big mistakes on paper if I can help it.

Since Bart brought up the analogy of hone-as-musical-instrument, let me tell you all a little story, that will be followed by a very important question. Once upon a time, I decided I wanted to join the school band. So my school did what I assume they thought was the best thing, and assembled all their available instruments for potential students to mess around with. I held the trumpet to my lips and blew - no sound. I couldn't make my mouth do what was necessary to make sound come out of the darn thing. Same with the trombone, flute, oboe, clarinet... but then came the saxophone. I picked it up, and immediately was able to make it play notes. So I chose that instrument, and stuck with it, and learned to play it skillfully. In previous years I had tried to learn how to play the piano and the guitar, and failed - couldn't master the skill no matter how hard I tried.

So here's the question. Is honing truly like I am describing playing a musical instrument - where each man will hone "best" on a particular style of hone?

What if the only instrument ever available to Louis Armstrong was an electric guitar? Would we know his name today?

Phrased differently, is it your opinion that ANY man can learn to hone on just a coticule, and use it as expertly as he could eventually learn to use any other hone? Or do some guys just "get" the coticule and some don't? Are there dudes that try and try and try the coticule and end up hating it, then pick up the Norton and love it immediately?

Put a third way... if, as Bart has said, "the edges you'll eventually get from your Norton can be just as nice as those from your Coticule", if I spend a year practicing the coticule, will I be able to hone as well as I could if I practiced a year on the Norton? Or do I need to try them all til I find a style that works best for me?

Quote Originally Posted by Bart View Post
Because Coticules did not became world-renowned for finishing. In the old days, razors were honed on a Coticule with slurry and mostly finished on paste. At least, that's the gear you'd find in a typical 70 year old shaving drawer in Europe. You can't even finish a Coticule-with-slurry honed edge on a Coticule with water just like that, because you'd get an unpleasant surprise: lack of keenness.
Why would finishing on paste work when finishing on coticule-with-water wouldn't? I would think once the bevel was set, you could finish on whatever you wanted. None of that makes sense to me.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's theoretically possible to go straight from a low grit hone to a high grit hone without a third hone in the middle, right? It'll take longer to grind down the harsh grooves of the low grit hone and get to a fine polish, but it'd still work.

Wouldn't it then still work to go from a slurried coticule to a water-only coticule, if you just accepted the fact that you'll need a buttload of passes on the water-only to wear down the slurry-created grooves??

I'm not saying that's how I want to do it, I'm just asking.

I thought I knew what I wanted to try next, but now I'm not so sure. I have two fine instruments in front of me and don't want to choose the wrong one. I tell you, the coticule looks awfully attractive in its little wooden box, compared to those big ugly Nortons... that have to soak and make a big mess...

Curse you guys and your excessive knowledge. And curse the internet for making every stinking choice in the world available to me all at once.

Fine. I'm going to try the Unicot method, ONCE, and document its success or failure. Maybe if I can convince myself the simple Unicot works, I'll be more willing to give the complicated Dilucot the study time it requires.

I'll try again, just for you Jimmy. And I'd better not annoy Bart too badly if he's the only dude who knows how to explain how to use this thing.

Bart, thank you for telling me not to get the DMT D8E. And to the fellow that I trust who PM'd me and told me to get the coticule in the first place, thank you for telling me that Naniwas and Shaptons take frequent lapping and "swarf up pretty bad". That just took my last non-Norton-non-Coticule pieces of equipment off the negotiating table.

I wonder if getting the BBW/Coti combo was a mistake. Maybe I should have gotten just the coticule, so I wouldn't have the BBW side available to muddy this situation up.