Thread: ONE COTICULE HONING VIDEO

Originally Posted by Carioca

"Fleurette Africaine"... SUBLIME! Un des mes morceaux de jazz préférés - du "Money Jungle" (Blue Note) avec les trois monstres sacrés du jazz, Duke Ellington + Charles Mingus + Max Roach.

Yes, I like to hone while listening to some vintage jazz. The Ellington Trio is awesome. Art Blakey's Jazz messengers too. Keith Jarrett's "The Köln Concert" has given me lots of excellent edges.

I knew it would not be long before someone would comment on the music. Cheers for that.

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

Bart is that coticule lapped from end to end?

Funny that you mention that. The Coticule was lapped when I got it. But it is one of my most used stones, and before I started shooting the video images, I eyeballed it to check if it looked flat enough. I know it can't possibly be in perfect true anymore, but it's not as cupped as it looks during the first shots in the video. I guess the lens of my camera is playing tricks here. When checked with a ruler, that hone looks perfectly flat. When checked with a pencil grid on a lapping plate, I'm sure it would not be that flat. I haven't noticed any loss of functionality, though.

Bart.

Bart, thank you for the time and effort. I am sure a lot of us have learned from your method. One question please. On the diagonal back and forth stroke at the beginning, I assume that you are raising the blade off the stone on the back stroke, but I don't want to assume anything wrong.

Oh, and a second question, please. Does the one stroke on the glass destroy the bevel or just make the blade dull? If there is a difference it may be in degrees. I have just finished sanding a 1/4 hollow which was really dull with no bevel what so ever that I could see or feel. Quite different I quess from the blade that you are working with? Do you ever go down to say a 1k for primary bevel work on restos?

Mark

Originally Posted by mkevenson

Bart, thank you for the time and effort. I am sure a lot of us have learned from your method. One question please. On the diagonal back and forth stroke at the beginning, I assume that you are raising the blade off the stone on the back stroke, but I don't want to assume anything wrong.

I don't lift the blade. I'm just rapidly removing steel for establishing straight bevel sides. Once there, the razor starts shaving arm hair (with "starts" I mean that it pops hairs at skin level with some effort). At that point I stop using those crude diagonal strokes and adopt a decent X-stroke. It takes about 30 laps on a normal sized Coticule with slurry to get the full benefit of X-strokes. The result is exactly the same as when the edge is the result of only X-strokes. It just goes faster.

Originally Posted by mkevenson

Oh, and a second question, please. Does the one stroke on the glass destroy the bevel or just make the blade dull? If there is a difference it may be in degrees.

On a freshly honed razor, the stroke on glass sets the edge back with about 30 strokes on an average Coticule with normal slurry. If it takes longer, then that means that the bevel carried an arc shape and needed more work in the first place.

Originally Posted by mkevenson

I have just finished sanding a 1/4 hollow which was really dull with no bevel what so ever that I could see or feel. Quite different I quess from the blade that you are working with? Do you ever go down to say a 1k for primary bevel work on restos?

As a general rule, if 15 minutes on the Coticule with slurry doesn't deliver a complete bevel, then I jump down to a DMT 600. For re-cutting bevels after restoration, I may drop as low as the DMT 325.
A decent Coticule with slurry in combination with the diagonal strokes easily deals with edges that come off the DMT-600.

Best regards,
Bart.

Very cool video Bart!! One day I am going to crack out my Belgian stones and when I do, I'll be watching this again.

James.

Many Thanks Bart,

Quite good timing considering I am short on $ and deciding between a B Y Coti or the Norton 4k/8k. I was hoping to see your demo, particularly the creation of a slurry.

I bought some cheap blades on the bay to practice and restore. But I want a system and I think the BY Coti is the way to go. I will wait on more replies to my last post.

Thank you a ton for your research and video!

Alspman

P.S. If you wet a towel and spread it out on the counter, then set the stone on top of it, it will stay and not slide.

Originally Posted by Alpsman

P.S. If you wet a towel and spread it out on the counter, then set the stone on top of it, it will stay and not slide.

Yes, but nothing beats hand-held honing for me.

I hear that! I hope one day to get there too.

Well done !

Cool.

I was expecting to see a more diagonal approach as i would say it (edge orientation with the length of the stone).

Now I see what you mean by diagonal = perpendicular slide(edge to length of hone)

Is there an optimum speed for X stroke?

Wonderful video Bart. Really enjoyable and helpful.

Can you tell me, what was the razor in the vid?

This is great.

Bart, you are my new hero. Sorry superman.