Thread: A newbie perspective on coticules

+1 with what Glen said,
I'd also like to add one more variable, to the equation, some razors will take longer to finish, than others depending on steel hardness and/or quality.

I've always felt no matter the job you are doing there is a correct tool to do it. Does that mean you can't use something else? Of course not but for maximum efficiency it's usually better to use the proper one.

I've been using the coticule as a finisher for years and am very happy with it. if I wanted to restore a bevel I wouldn't use it I have better choices.

Of course you'll find some razors that seem to do better with certain hones over others but in general that's what I go by. I can fall back to my Escher or japanese natural or even a pasted strop.

Just take a bar of steel and place it over running water and in several thousand years you'll have the sharpest most perfect razor in the world.

i've had many coticules and never came a cross one of them that was bad, may be i'm lucky. My first hone was a 4k/8k and i struggled with that as a newbe, yet i never struggled with coticule for some reason. I just found i liked it the first time i used it. i also liked the idea of one hone to do it all. that why i stuck with it. i have to admit the first time i used it i thought it was terrible and wonderd what all the hipe was surrounding coticule. The first time i got my edge sharp on coticule i could'nt believe how smooth the edge was. rep[eating that was far and thew. Now with lots of patients the results great .if i was new to this i'm sure i would of opted for naniwas s/s.

Thanks for sharing, Heir. It's not easy to say "I tried to do this because lots of guys said it would be easy to follow a procedure and I was unable to do it" - that takes courage.

BTW I've seen one of Heir's cotis, and it is certainly suitable for razors. In my opinion, asking if it's bad coti's is similar to asking if Heir was honing with his feet. I have never heard of "bad" coti's ending up in the "open market" and I've never heard of anyone honing with their feet (though there is the video of the guy who shaves with his feet).

Now, granted I don't know what everyone's experiences are, but looking at the responses, there seem to be two main catagories - A) New guys who counter Heir's experiences by saying coti's did work for them when they were new and B) Guys who have been around for a while saying they also don't think coti's are easy for new guys to learn on.

I think this trend is actually pretty widespread for exactly the same reason I thank Heir for posting this thread - it's not easy to admit you couldn't do something. I bet for every new guy who says they learned easily with coti's there are several for whom it did not work. I think there are highly skewed statistics presented if you "do your reading" on what works or doesn't for new guys.

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For what it's worth, I had a BBW and coti pretty early in my learning process, and my way of getting around my inability to really assess my edges at given stages and develop an "efficient" honing process was to always do more honing than I needed to. I didn't have to worry about wire edges and I wasn't doing so much honing as to remove massive amounts of steel - my philosophy was that it was better to do 50 or 100 extra strokes and know I'm definitely there than to end up with razors that won't shave. When I switched out my BBW/coti for the Naniwa 5k and 8k, my honing times were cut to about 1/4 (I timed large batches on both setups).

Not to say that the BBW or coti are bad hones - to me they are things to play with, not things to work with. It's also always good to have a plan B for razors that don't seem to behave under your plan A.

Well said, Dylan. While I still fail to see where experienced members have recommended a Coticule as an all-purpose beginner hone, I can see where beginners may be led to believe that it can (or, rather, should, because it technically can) be used by beginners.

That said, SRP is strongly focussed on synthetic hones. One of the reason is that their most vocal proponents use them either professionally or at least for large amounts of razors. For someone who hones a razor per month, or less (which I presume is the vast majority of our members), efficiency might play a less important role, though. Personally, I find the idea of honing a 1920s German razor on a 2000s Mexican made synthetic hone appalling. From a purely utilitarian perspective, this is stupid. But so what? People in my country have used natural stones for a long time, and I want to learn to do it, too, no matter the cost involved.

And to get a wider perspective, run this through a translation service: eine Schärfanleitung. It is the official sharpening tutorial of Germany's leading board. And it has everything in it that will bring upon you the wrath of SRP's honing gods: "always start with a 1k hone", "use tape", "set a double bevel", "use both hands", "don't use x-strokes", "the perfect blade angle is 16-20°"... These guys are doing it all wrong, but their edges still work.

So many variables, so many personal preferences...

Regards,
Robin

Thanks for all the responses and perspectives to everyone who posted.

In case anyone got the wrong impression, I was just writing this thread in case other newbies have the same illusions that I did about how easy and cool it would be to hone on one natural stone. I'm not trying to blame anyone for giving me that illusion, especially since I don't even remember who it could have been. Also, I'm guessing that my own tendency to infer too much has to do with it as well.

Anyways, I hope that it'll be helpful for other new guys to read what a fellow newbie thinks, cause my guess is that their experience is gonna be more like mine than like a master honer's experience.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

First, no offense to my friend Ryan, you just happened to post a very relevant point...

Therein lies the root of the problem, hence the huge blow up in the original Coticule threads, mostly precipitated by some of the most experienced Honemeisters on this forum...

Using a natural hone, is a variable in itself, then you have the slurry as another variable, then the dilution of the slurry as a third variable...

This is why many of us said this wasn't such a great idea for beginners to use,, It had nothing to do with the like or dislike of the stone or the system that was purposed for using the stone...We had nothing but good to say about the whole thing, right up until Bart purposed that newbies could do it,,, That is when things changed, and as we are now seeing more and more of these types of threads it looks as though we were right..
The other thing I am noticing is that many of you that started off with just using one stone, have started adding a low grit cutter just like we told you was going to be needed... Some of you have actually added a second Coticule (a fast cutter) so the other reason (only one stone) that was the huge attraction of the stone in the first place is being set aside too...

Please don't think I am saying this one stone system can't be used in fact it can be used on any stone that is capable of producing a slurry and can finish anywhere near 8k or better... Sham did it with a Japanese natural, I did it with a Norton 8k and IIRC it was Lynn that did it with an Escher I bet a Chinese can be used too if you wanted to take the time...

Again just like some of us have always said, every single variable you toss into the honing path has to be overcome, more variables, makes for a much steeper learning curve, so really it all boils down to how big a hill do you want to climb????
I guess there could be some satisfaction just in the pride of knowing you climbed a steep hill, which is some of what I am reading now... or perhaps, you just got lucky with buying a good Coticule

JMHO of what I am reading...

No offense taken at all Glen, in fact you've brought up some great points.

Re-reading my original post I can see how it may appear that I'm recommending coticules to newbies; this was not my intention, even though I've had success with mine since day one. I realize for every member like myself and Gary there are many who just can't seem to make it work. And therein lies Glen's "variables" argument.

Originally Posted by holli4pirating

BTW I've seen one of Heir's cotis, and it is certainly suitable for razors.

In my opinion, asking if it's bad coti's is similar to asking if Heir was honing with his feet. I have never heard of "bad" coti's ending up in the "open market" and I've never heard of anyone honing with their feet

Dylan, your first point is taken, I just had to ask the question to "throw it out there.

Your second point, however, is off the mark. Sham insinuates that members may have "bad" coticules quite frequently (or, as he puts it, coticules that are not suitable for straight razors), leading me to believe that if he continues to raise the same question over and over again then he must have had some valid reason to do so. I have no idea where you got this "honing with feet" comparison from. Since coticules are natural, and natural substances are subject to wide variances, there is always a possiblity that there is a bad apple in the bunch. Hasn't happened to me, or Gary or many others, but that doesn't mean it can't happen.

Let's just leave it at that.

Originally Posted by Ryan82

Sham insinuates that members may have "bad" coticules quite frequently (or, as he puts it, coticules that are not suitable for straight razors)

Can you point to a post or thread? I tried searching via google for Coticule "not suitable" and didn't see anything about coticules that were not suitable for honing razors.

The honing with feet part was a joke, specifically a reference to the youtube video that was posted a while back.

+1 to what Glen said... I have a pretty fast coticule, but I'm still partial to using a honing progression involving other stones with the coticule as a finisher. Lots of variables there, I like to take it down to 1 or two.