Thread: Coticule finishing speed

Originally Posted by zib

Lot's of guys, including me, like to use a one two punch when it comes to Cotis. I start on the dressante, nice pink stone, good cutter, fast...and i finish on my La Nouvelle, Pale yellow, wood grain looking stone...

I also have a pink coticule that I sometimes start with. I experiment with different approaches. I've used a bbw/yellow as if it was a norton 4/8 sometimes. Other times I've taken a slow greenish coticule and generated a slurry.

Not the heavy slurry Bart describes for setting a bevel but a more moderate slurry. Use that to sharpen and it speeds up the green coti without having the dulling tendency that heavy slurry will exhibit. Then dilute and eventually get to clear water. Got a really smooth edge with that.

I count strokes because it is a habit I got into early on. I also am anal about doing an equal amount on each side. OTOH, I've gotten to where I don't worry about whether it is thirty or three hundred. It takes what it takes.

Honing requires patience. If you haven't got it hone enough and you'll develop it IME. Once I learned my stroke, the way a billiard player learns his stroke, I found I could do 100 strokes in a relatively short time. So I count 'em but I just worry about results, not the number. Just my way, not necessarily the "right" way.

I'm sure some of the questions are nothing more than knocking off the ignorant sharp edges of a coti noob - and that's no small favor. I appreciate that a bunch. Some of the anxiety at my end is that it's not a cheap rock - about $300 delivered - it's big 7.01" x 3.01". I wanted big, 'cause my stroke is still developing, and the smaller the rock, the more cramped the stroke is and the more perfect it has to be to keep from undoing alot of work to get to the finisher.

It makes sense that swarf isn't really the factor in finishing (Thank You, Oz!). It does give a gage of speed - as the counsel to learn the asagi advised.

Bart suggested 30 strokes, stop & shave. If not there, try 50 more, which seems a good approach.

MarkinLondon: I LOVE CIRCLES! I've watched vids of Japanese barbers on Asagis and one post on the coti that does almost exclusively circles. It seems an effective way to do the main cutting/finishing quickly, correct a section that's not quite there, and its easier for me to keep smooth than a perfect lap on a small stone.

I won't be able to get multiple cotis for a while, but Bart says the Veinette and La Lateneuse are both very consisten, and have good speed. If I got a 2nd stone of one I already had, it would likely be another asagi that cut faster or was larger.

Patience Noob: hard to hear, but sounds quite realistic. The time it takes on the asagi can be odd, 'cause it doesn't seem to respond to the normal indicators of TPT and HHT. 'Won't lop a hair off the stone - but after stropping, its keen and butter smooth. I may be giving way more strokes than needed, but it definitely takes more than 100. I'll have to test 100, strop/shave, another 50, strop/shave to see where it needs to be. These long sessions are on very hard steel (wacker & williams).

The task at hand is connecting again w/ Maurice to get the transaction done and the clock ticking on the transportation time.

One of the bigger curiosities with the coti are for the heavy sheffields. I don't think I've ever had a good edge on one. They feel different on the face, but before concluding I don't like them, I want to try one that has a really fine edge - which most think is best done on a Coti.

'Sure appreciate your kind help.

I've been fooling with this honing for going on three years with many hones and razors. It is still somewhat of a mystery to me. I mean that I have learned how to do it but it isn't like running a line with a tattoo machine. You do it and there it is, plain to see, for better or worse.

Even with microscopes and eye loupes I can't see sharp. I use the TNT until it passes and then go to the TPT and hair popping. When it feels right I strop and shave. If you're restoring a razor and have to sand out rust and then scratches it is easy to see progress. Not so with honing the fine edge of a razor.

You have to hone and try. I can see a certain amount in the microscope but the tactile feel of the edge and the test shave are the only ways I have found to really see whether I'm there or not. Doesn't really matter whether I'm honing on one stone or another. I still have to work at it and cut and try.

BTW, IME the Sheffield wedges are more work than Solingen or USA full hollows. That is why you see a lot of guys use three layers of tape to cut down on the width of the bevel and therefore the amount of metal to be removed. There was a thread awhile back speculating that the honers back in the days of the full wedges used to hone them knife like with the spine off of the hone or that they used a piece that slipped on over the spine to increase the angle.

I don't know about that but I've got an old "for barber's use" W&B that has no spine wear and it is 160 years old. I know they didn't have tape back then.Either it was honed like I described above or not honed at all. So part of the joy of the journey is experimenting with this honing stuff. If you look at it that way. Otherwise I guess it is frustrating. I have learned to look at it as interesting rather than frustrating.

'Most gracious, Jimmy.

Like most acquiring skills, I sought the right 'formula' approach, which is oversimplifying it in razors and some other places. It seems I must embrace the ambiguity here and stay simple: experiment, try, experiment more.

I find Soligen and US much easier to deal with also. I'd continue and say I prefer the feel of these steels better on the face, but that wouldn't really be right. I can't say that until I've tried a truly good edge on a sheffield, and I don't think I have. It'll happen.

I continue with gratitude for your kind help.

Originally Posted by Disburden

Faster coticules on water tend to have a crispier finish to the face than the slower ones which become very mellow on the finish. The la veinette is going to be a good one and valuable, that layer is going to be one of the pricier layers in later 2011.

Great news!! Bart just picked me out a nice one today

Edit: Nevermind it's a La Grosse Blanche

Originally Posted by pinklather

The slow stones are in the hundreds for laps - so I'm burnt out on slow.

IIRC from past posts you were going to your Asagi after a C12k, a stone that a lot of people finish with & shave off.
What I still haven't worked out is why you need hundreds of laps on another finisher when the razor should be at least close to shave ready. I would think even on the slowest stone after that point hundreds of laps would not be needed... but I'd like to be corrected if my logic is flawed

Originally Posted by zib

You know, They're all different. I have many. La Nouvelle vein, La Vienette, La petite blance, La Grosse blance, dressante, the list goes on and on. Lot's of guys, including me, like to use a one two punch when it comes to Cotis. I start on the dressante, nice pink stone, good cutter, fast...and i finish on my La Nouvelle, Pale yellow, wood grain looking stone... it's good finisher. I'm normally not concerned with speed when I get to the finisher. More so, on the cutter. So that's where I'd normally be checking how fast the slurry darkens.

I've always liked my La Nouvelle for finishing. It leaves a very smooth edge on the blade.

My La Nouvelle veine leaves a nice smooth finish as well, very fast and furious on slurry though so I tend to use it with just water on finishers.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

What I still haven't worked out is why you need hundreds of laps on another finisher when the razor should be at least close to shave ready. I would think even on the slowest stone after that point hundreds of laps would not be needed... but I'd like to be corrected if my logic is flawed

Oz, YES! I see no flaw at all. I don't think it should take that much either. From the 12k, I'll do 70-90 circles/side. then usually 20-30 x-strokes. When I've stropped at this point, shaves are exceedingly smooth, but the keenness isn't that high. Or maybe it's just the 'felt' keenness. If I do 70-90 more circles and another 20-50 x-strokes, 200 canvas, 100 horse hide - all the joy finally comes - and it really is satisfying. 'Best edges I've ever had by a factor. Even at this level, HHT is no where off the stones, and not that good after stopping. My sense of the TPT must not be that refined yet, 'cause I can't tell any difference in the thumb pad between the first set of passes and the second set.

The only possible factor that could come to bear is that most of my blades have a smile. Only two of 14 do not have smiles. Maybe since the circles progress from one side of the smile to the other - each section is only getting maybe 20-30 per set of circles. The last 10 strokes are swooping/sweeping strokes to make sure the tip and tail are finished.

When I've put this time into an edge, they're wonderful. It just seems like an awful lot of work for an edge. Maybe it's common, but it still seems like a lot right now.

BTW: I appreciate your patience in wading through this noob's travails. Snickering is surely allowed, if not encouraged.

Originally Posted by pinklather

BTW: I appreciate your patience in wading through this noob's travails. Snickering is surely allowed, if not encouraged.

I think what I'm trying to hint at is get it happening sooner on earlier stones then finishing is just finishing
Hang in there my friend. At least the shave is what you want . Time spent is then immaterial.

Oz - I've thought the same, and gone after test results on 8k and the chinese 12k. 12k lops hair with aplomb - always has. I've not tried a full shave off the 8k, but I pay attention there, cause it seems like nothing's right later if it's not right there. I can shave off the 12k & have for 5 months. Until I tried slurry until bone dry and edge leading strokes on a crox grid on the slow side of the 12k, the edges were harsh. Slurry and crox tamed the harshness to some extent.

That would seem to point to some breakdown in the stoke on the asagi that undoes what was achieved on the 12k. Yet if I put in the time, it happens. As I mentioned, smoothness is all there with 100 circles, 50 stokes, but not that keen. Really good shaves, a vegan edge - doesn't want to cleave flesh at all unless I get really ham-handed. Roughly 150 more (were up into Arkansas stone stroke counts here) strokes, and all the keenness and the smoothness are there.

It seems wrong to me that it should take this many stokes, and I'd love to find the reason. Flawed stroke, hitting some bump or crack in the asagi surface - whatever it is - it keeps me working harder than it seems it should require. I'm suspecting its not on the earlier stones or I wouldn't get the HHT & shaves I get from them.

Again, I appreciate your kindness.