Thread: Belgian Confusion.....

Hey guys,

I have been loosely following these discussions on the belgian coticules, while I haven't been in the loop for some time on straight razors, as other edged tools have taken most of my time, I still enjoy honing a razor every now and then.

Anyways, I honed a TI last night with my nearly worn out Norton 4K/8K, then proceded to give it a few laps on a belgian. Result?, bad edge. I got out the loup, there were some much coarser scatches along the whole edge. Before you ask, the stone came from perfectedge.com.... it a small trapezoid bout stone.

I have always thought that the belgian and every other natural stone on earth was coarser than a synthetic, this confirms it for me. I realize that natural stones cut differently, so you can't really compare them to synthetics, but I haven't seen where they are good for razors yet. Has anyone had a similiar experience, or am I just kookoo for coco puffs?

Thanks,
Lee

If you were using a yellow Belgian (coticule), I can't imagine how this happened unless the stone is defective. Lynn considers these stones to somewhere around 12K, and it seems that way to me too. I can't understand how a stone that fine could have made coarse scratches.

I would be more inclined to suspect the Norton. From my experience with now 5 TIs, they're great right out of the box. You should have assessed the blade before going to Norton. I found the most a new TI needed was a few refreshing swipes with a Swaty, and they became super sharp. Umping right into the Norton was not a good idea.

Make sure that the edges of the Belgian are rounded over and that you have the yellow stone, not the blue one.

Razor is an old one I honed several months ago, it never did shave right and had been sitting on the shelf.... I did a 1/3 on the Norton feather light then did about 15 on the yellow belgian ultra light. Now that I think about it, I did use my nagura on the belgian, maybe that little SOB had some stray grit in it. Back to the drawing board........

The Belgian Coticule has large particle size, but due to their shape (shaped like football, and that's European football ), they produce fine stiration marks, somewhere ~8000-12000 Grit...

Nenad

I like the Belgian coticules but I don't really consider them a finishing stone. The more I use ceramics the more I like them. Everyone seems to be on the Norton 4K/8K and Coticule bandwagon and few seem to like the good old-fashioned barber hones but I'm one of them. These were used to keep razors shaving sharp for a long, long time before Norton abrasives was around and the thing I know that creates a finer edge than the old ceramic barber hones is maybe the newer Spyderco ceramic hones.

I've had acceptable results using all of the different coticule stones I own but I've had better results with the Honemaster barber hone, Fernsler's barber hone and yes, even the Spyderco hones, which aren't given nearly as much credit as they deserve for their ability to create an outstanding cutting edge.

It's easy to get a good understanding of the different scratch patterns and their results when honing by spending time honing old-fashioned Sheffield wedges that typically have a large and very visible bevel. The extra, extra, extra, paper-thin, hollow grinds are easy to hone and shave delightully but it can be hard to see the bevel since it's just a hair's breadth most times. The longer honed surfaces give you a good chance to observe the quality of the surface finish left by your hones more easily. I like to hold them up to a bright light and move them around to see the reflections from all angles.

How this fits into this Belgian Coticule discussion is that I've had enough feedback visually to agree with the original poster that the finish of a Belgian coticule is definitely not all that fine, in my opinion.

I like the coticule. It's just not the holy grail of razor hones to me.

I've also become very curious about'em. Since I'm also expecting a coticule to come in soon, it should be a good time for a comparison test, if I can scrape up the cash for one.

I don't know about the Spyderco ceramics, but I have tryed final honing on two "finishing" hones after the Norton 8K, and I am not realy sure that my Lithide and Itsapeach (well, this might be) are fine finishing hones. Now, I am talking this only in relation to the N8K. I have managed to put the scratch marks back on my mirror 8K edge dry honong on the Lithide. I believe they are ~6000 grit... Well, some of the barber hones are ceramic too...

Belgian Coticule stone has been standard for razor honing for centuries. That's what the razors are honed in both Thieres Issard and DOVO factories. I think Barber hones are developed in the States due to dificulty in obtaining the Coticule there. Also, the straigh razor book from 1940's advices against further refining with pastes. Anyways, my thought is that Norton 8000 side is very suited to put final finish on the razor, and until I get my Coticule (I hope soon) that is what I'll be using.

Nenad

If you look on page 2 of the downloadable catalog on this site you will see that the Norton 8K is listed at 3 microns, this is equivalent to a Japanese 5 or 6K. I too have noticed Swaty's etc. leaving scratches behind in Norton 8K finishes, this does not mean it won't make a good edge it just means it's not as fine.

http://www.nortonstones.com/


PB, do you have a link that has some info about the Spyderco hones?

Originally Posted by pikappa167

If you look on page 2 of the downloadable catalog on this site you will see that the Norton 8K is listed at 3 microns, this is equivalent to a Japanese 5 or 6K. I too have noticed Swaty's etc. leaving scratches behind in Norton 8K finishes, this does not mean it won't make a good edge it just means it's not as fine.

Actually, when you're talking about the scale used for diamond paste, an 8K comes out 3 microns. Under 200x magnification the Swaty has a finer scratch pattern than an 8K Norton. It looks like it could be much finer than 10K.