Thread: So The Noob Went And Bought A Coticule...

Hi!

Seems like you already know a bit about finishing on a coticule as you quote unicot and dilucot (terms I don't much care for, to be honest!).

To be brutally honest, a coticule is just a hone, a hone with it's own pecularities and different ways of using, but a hone nevertheless. It isn't really any harder to learn - using it will teach you that.

What is different about coticules - and I stress that this is my opinion - is the almost folk-lore like mythos that has surrounded them.

No doubt they give a smooth shave - at the expense of sharpness.
No doubt you can set a bevel on one - if you've got nothing else to do for a few hours and the coticule is a fast cutter and not too hard.
No doubt you can get a sharp and not 'mushy' edge - if the coticule is hard enough and slow enough.

You just have to figure out what type of stone you have - very soft, medium soft, soft, soft/hard, hard, very hard. The very soft ones are good for repair work as they cut relatively fast, but in my experience they are useless for a decent shaving edge. The very hard ones give an edge that is sharp and not at all mushy, but are useless for repair work - just finishers, and pricey ones at that. In the middle you have a stone that can cut fast enough to do a bit of repair work and can set a half-decent edge. As it comes in the middle range, it often turns out to be a bit of a middling stone. I think I must have bought and resold 30 or more of them that I used extensively before I realised this. I read the other day that the ratio of 'keepers' to 'sell-on-again' stones averaged around 1 decent one to 20 sell agains amongst a sample of users - can't think where I read this, or even whether I am recalling correctly - it may have been here or on another forum.

I don't mean to put you off - far from it - coticules can be fun to use and for a lot of people they serve their purpose well. But they aren't the magic bullet of the hone world, and if you keep chasing it you can end up spending an awful lot of money. You might end up really appeciating that chinese hone...

Regards,
Neil