Thread: Help needed with coticule honing.

Pics of the blade might help. Pics of the coti won't be turned away, either.

Hey guys, thanks for all the feed back, I've read up a lot on honing but obviously practice is the key, will check out the links you gave me.

Thought I'd put all the information on my razor / hone and what I've been doing down here to give you a better idea of the situation.

Razor - Dovo Prima Klang - extra hollow ground - 5/8 blade - carbon steel - Picture

Hone - Belgian coticule - "La Veinette" - Picture

What I've tried - following unicot videos / articles, I've tried dulling the edge on glass then using half X back and forth strokes to try and get the blade to the stage where it will shave arm hair, so far, I can't get it even remotely sharp.

I've done pretty much the things you're doing and with similar results. How I fixed it? I threw away the glass bottle, put the coticule up, learned to set the bevel on a norton 1k and then learned to progress through the 4 and 8k until I was getting comfortable shaves on a consistent basis. Then I brought the coticule back out, cut the slurry to skim milk and fairly rapidly diluted to water. Hundreds of strokes on a poor bevel are not better than 10's of strokes on a good bevel. It really comes down to time on the hones (personal experience) and starting on a system that has as few variables as possible. I've shared your frustration! Good Luck and hope it comes together for you in short order! Wouldn't hurt to get an old razor to practice this on and not ruin your nice Dovo.

Best Regards,

Howard

Edit: I hope, with all the half strokes and time on the hone, you're taping the spine. It can sure save you some heartache in the beginning. Decide later on if you want to keep taping.

Prima Klang is one of my favourite dovo's.
gary

Perhaps working on your honing stroke would help. I found doing regular x strokes on light slurry as opposed to half stokes allows one to develop a good feel for the blade on the stone and builds muscle memory. Build up to using half strokes by adding in the occasional half stoke during normal honing. Whilst you can fairly quickly establish a bevel using quick half stokes, if you don't have a nice even stroke you can also quickly wipe out an edge. One poor stroke can wipe out many good ones.

What size is your stone ????

Thats why I am a bit angry at the coticule guys sometimes, they make newbies believe that honing with a coticule is like doing some circles, half-strokes, some dilutions, and voilá, you have a smooth and sharp edge, but this isn't the case a lot of times.

Someone who is new to honing shouldn't do circles and half-strokes, it is hard enough to master a nice even X-stroke, and not just for a new guy. Thats why I advise everyone to start honing on synths, you can focus on learning how to hone, learn the sharpness tests, and learn how a good 8k shave feels like.

Setting a bevel with a coti: it can be done, but it is tedious with the majority of cotis if you are honing factory honed razors or vintage/fleamarket razors. Especially for those who are new to this. Learning what consistency the slurry should be, when to refresh, when to dilute, a lot of problems. If you use too little slurry than it will take ages, but if you use too much than the slurry will dull the edge so much that you won't be able to shave arm hair.

Do yourself a favor, and buy yourself at least a 1k stone, it will make life much easier.

HEY where are you from?

Originally Posted by jeness

Thats why I am a bit angry at the coticule guys sometimes, they make newbies believe that honing with a coticule is like doing some circles, half-strokes, some dilutions, and voilá, you have a smooth and sharp edge, but this isn't the case a lot of times.

Someone who is new to honing shouldn't do circles and half-strokes, it is hard enough to master a nice even X-stroke, and not just for a new guy. Thats why I advise everyone to start honing on synths, you can focus on learning how to hone, learn the sharpness tests, and learn how a good 8k shave feels like.

Setting a bevel with a coti: it can be done, but it is tedious with the majority of cotis if you are honing factory honed razors or vintage/fleamarket razors. Especially for those who are new to this. Learning what consistency the slurry should be, when to refresh, when to dilute, a lot of problems. If you use too little slurry than it will take ages, but if you use too much than the slurry will dull the edge so much that you won't be able to shave arm hair.

Do yourself a favor, and buy yourself at least a 1k stone, it will make life much easier.

This is a very good post IMO.

Nothing wrong with a Coticule, but this is basically the reasons the Coticule isn't perhaps the best choice for people starting out in honing.

I've got two coticules that I've been unable to figure out, so I completely understand the frustration of the OP. It definitely helps having a 1k stone for bevel setting, but even then my results have been sub-par. I'm determined to figure them out, but coticules are some of the weirdest natural stones that I've worked with yet. One of mine is super slow on just water, but add the smallest amount of slurry and it will dull the edge quicker than quick. The other seems pretty fast (slurried, it will start to darken in 10 or 15 strokes) but I haven't been able to get a shaveable edge off of it either. I recently tried finishing on glycerin, and the results were terrible. I've even taken Glen's advice and tried finishing a Sheffield blade on a coti, and while it shaved, it sure wasn't fun.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If I'd started honing with a coticule, I probably would have quit a long time ago. I was getting good edges off my Nortons within a week of starting to learn how to hone, and they've gotten a lot better since then. The cotis are a different beast altogether, and there seems to be so much variation between each one that you just have to play with them until you get them figured out.... which is a difficult prospect for a noob honer.