ShavingUniverse.com

Register a free account now!

If you are registered, you get access to the members only section, can participate in the buy & sell second hand forum and last but not least you can reserve your preferred username before someone else takes it.

A coticule that glitters

danjared

Well-Known Member
Some months ago, I came upon a coticule of an unusual size. It was described as being exceedingly fast and was large: 250mm by 60mm (about an inch thick) to be exact. It is a natural combo. Because of the supposed freakish speed, the price was pretty low too. Well, I've played with it a bit but only finally came to some strange conclusions about it. It's a rather odd specimen indeed.

First, I noticed that it has two personalities. After a fresh lapping, it is very smooth, resembling a La Veinette in its "soft" feel and appearance, although it is a bit more yellow. But, after, say, 20-30 laps, it starts to become rough. I couldn't figure out why. I noticed that the edge it left was heavily microchipped. There is some vein down the middle, bisecting the hone into two shorter ones. It looks like some quartz-rich region, and I figured that might be causing the microchipping. After some testing, I determined that that's not the cause. In fact, after freshly lapping the stone, I can hone on water for a little bit and not get any microchipping. But, after a bit of time, the microchipping starts! Argh! It took me a while to realize this, but it seems that, after a fresh lapping, it is smooth, but a bit of use seems to quickly release the binder, leaving what is presumably a high concentration of garnets on the surface. The stone visibly changes appearance from a soft, somewhat glittery yellow to a much more glittery and more whitish color. The feel goes from smooth to feeling somewhere in between my Shapton 220 GlassStone and my worn in DMT course hone. In fact, on water, a razor starts leaving a trail of black on the stone faster than on my Shapton 1000 GS. I can only wonder how this stone left the warehouse or saw use. It arrived with a "Made in Belgium" stamp on the side and with some noticeable dishing.

It will likely end up as a stone for knives, where the microchipping does not matter. I just wish I understood its properties better. I'm considering cutting a chunk off one end for analysis. It's plenty long after all.
 
I remember that stone and Ian's description of it. Was curious how you were getting along with it. Interesting indeed. I've run across a coticule that was worthless to run a dilucot on and it was only suited for finishing, but never anything like this where it is the opposite.
 
Joe, you're welcome to borrow it and try it out. Maybe you'd have better luck. (Maybe you know someone at LANL who could analyze it too. ;) )
 
My friend danjared six months ago a friend invited me to his place to see a coticule found in his grandfather's tools whose profession was woodworker.The coticule was placed in a wood box without any label but on the coticule side stamped <Made in Belgium> by black ink. The dimension was 250mmx60mmx32mm. I took the coticule with me for a fresh lapping for both sides as a natural combo stone.
The color was yellow whitish presenting a depth.... like to see three-dimensional under the surface (or like a piece of flamed maple wood)The blue side was a little bit lighter purple mauve color than the known.
After the lapping i played many times with the hone. As you said after the a fresh lapping the hone was smooth and soft but after time elapsed (i never counted strokes) the surface transformed more and more rough but without any auto-slurry.I never managed to get HHT more than 2.I haven't any magnification to observe if the edge presents micro teeth but my sense says YES there were.I tried the blue side which was completely different .From this side i got a smooth edge with a HHT 4 after stropping.
So i don't know to tell you about the vein because both are vintage coticules mined from a mine which already exhausted,but i am sure that these stones came from a larger vein and selected especially for plane-irons ,chisels and generally for woodworking tools honing.
Hoping i filled a bit the gap.
Best regards
Emmanuel
 
Emmanuel said:
My friend danjared six months ago a friend invited me to his place to see a coticule found in his grandfather's tools whose profession was woodworker.The coticule was placed in a wood box without any label but on the coticule side stamped <Made in Belgium> by black ink. The dimension was 250mmx60mmx32mm. I took the coticule with me for a fresh lapping for both sides as a natural combo stone.
The color was yellow whitish presenting a depth.... like to see three-dimensional under the surface (or like a piece of flamed maple wood)The blue side was a little bit lighter purple mauve color than the known.
After the lapping i played many times with the hone. As you said after the a fresh lapping the hone was smooth and soft but after time elapsed (i never counted strokes) the surface transformed more and more rough but without any auto-slurry.I never managed to get HHT more than 2.I haven't any magnification to observe if the edge presents micro teeth but my sense says YES there were.I tried the blue side which was completely different .From this side i got a smooth edge with a HHT 4 after stropping.
So i don't know to tell you about the vein because both are vintage coticules mined from a mine which already exhausted,but i am sure that these stones came from a larger vein and selected especially for plane-irons ,chisels and generally for woodworking tools honing.
Hoping i filled a bit the gap.
Best regards
Emmanuel

Wow. Just wow. I would love to see some pictures of your hone to compare to mine. I will try to get pictures of mine up soon. I would also love to know if Bart or Maurice know anything more about these stones.
 
By the way, the blue side of mine has a piece glued onto it to make it perfectly rectangular. I was somewhat baffled by that, as it is clearly from a different part of the BBW vein (or possibly from some other BBW vein altogether).
 
No longer i have the coticule because is not mine.I borrowed from a friend from Thessaloniki(Northern Greece)But i can ask him to send me some pictures sharing them to the community.
Best regards
Emmanuel
 
danjared said:
Joe, you're welcome to borrow it and try it out. Maybe you'd have better luck. (Maybe you know someone at LANL who could analyze it too. ;) )

I'm pretty sure you and Ian know your coticules, so I have no reasons to think this one acts any different than you say. In terms of seeing if anyone here could analyze it - I don't know of anyone offhand, but can look around to see if anyone could offer any help.
 
danjared said:
It will likely end up as a stone for knives, where the microchipping does not matter.
Emmanuel said:
... i am sure that these stones came from a larger vein and selected especially for plane-irons ,chisels and generally for woodworking tools honing.
I wouldn't like to be seen as a devil's advocate here but doesn't it contradict the general opinion of this forum that every coticule is up to razor honing? :huh:
 
maro said:
danjared said:
It will likely end up as a stone for knives, where the microchipping does not matter.
Emmanuel said:
... i am sure that these stones came from a larger vein and selected especially for plane-irons ,chisels and generally for woodworking tools honing.
I wouldn't like to be seen as a devil's advocate here but doesn't it contradict the general opinion of this forum that every coticule is up to razor honing? :huh:

Yes you can hone a razor on that,but isn't every coticule same. Please see :http://www.coticule.be/coticule043.html
Best regards
Emmanuel
 
Well, what can I say?
Here we go again...:)

Every now and then, a Coticule turns up that gives the owner problems for razor sharpening. On the 10 or so occasions that I have been able to check things out for the troubled owner, about half were cases of operator problems. There are people who just can't manage to learn how to sharpen something with a Coticule. Some of them can't manage to sharpen anything full stop. As some people really can't manage to learn shaving with a straight razor. Some can't learn how to swim either, no matter how hard they try. I know how harsh that sounds, but it is true, and it is no more the fault of a hone than it is the fault of the water... if you catch my drift here.

In about the other half of cases, there really was something going on with the Coticule in question. I'm not naming layers, because it really seems irrelevant. All Coticules contain minerals that belong to the quartz-family. The grains are supposed to be way below a size that has any significance for the sharpening properties. And almost all Coticules contain larger grains of other minerals, soft enough to have no real contribution to the abrasion of hard steel either. But apparently, sometimes, one escapes the general rule, and causes the kind of micro-damage to the edge, that will interfere with shaving purposes. It's rare but it happens. Sometimes, someone will try to draw generalizing conclusions out of such an instance. Was there one mine once, that mined one layer that couldn't be used for razor sharpening? It's not impossible, although I doubt it. Does the current Ardennes Coticule mine such a layer (if it exists at all)? Well, there is not a single indication that they do. I can be formal about that.
But it is a natural product, and as with the most promising bottle of wine, even from a top-rated year, there is no absolute certainty before one opens the bottle and tastes the wine... I believe that is the very reason why Ardennes has a "no questions" guarantee. Of course they don't offer it at the so-called "vintage" Coticules from companies that ceased business long time ago.

I guess what I'm trying to say here, is that, as interestig and welcome it is to discuss this singular specimen, it should really not keep anyone from using his own Coticule in the confidence that it can sharpen a razor very well. Coticule.be has almost 900 members (real members, we don't keep spambots on our memberlist as some other forums do), many of them owning more than one Cotcule. If there was a significant problem with dysfunctional Coticules, it would be all over the forum, because by their very nature, problematic cases fetch more attention and forum posts than every day succesfull use.

As to address the problem with the discussed hone, it sounds to me as a problem with too large quartz granules. A lapping job will probably tear out the ones occuring at the surface, until more honing exposes fresh ones...

Best regards,
Bart.
 
maro said:
danjared said:
It will likely end up as a stone for knives, where the microchipping does not matter.
Emmanuel said:
... i am sure that these stones came from a larger vein and selected especially for plane-irons ,chisels and generally for woodworking tools honing.
I wouldn't like to be seen as a devil's advocate here but doesn't it contradict the general opinion of this forum that every coticule is up to razor honing? :huh:

I was secretly waiting for Bart to answer since I knew his answer would be more thorough. :D

I do not consider this coticule a rule by any stretch. I do find it interesting that Emmanuel encountered a very similar stone. I would find it plausible that there is a vein that was mined that only produced hones not suitable for razors. After all, there is coticule rock in the Ardennes and elsewhere in there world, such as Maine and Chile, which is not suitable for honing, even if a large part of the coticule in the Ardennes is. We are fortunate that men like Maurice--who can separate the usable rock from the rest--are still around. If this hone were bought from Ardennes-Coticule, I would most likely exchange it (although I doubt another stone of its size could easily be found). However, it was not manufactured by Maurice's operation.

I didn't bring this stone up to produce some shocking revelation. I do not believe there is such a revelation here. I brought it up because it is an unusual specimen, and it is one in several ways.

Lastly, I finally got around to taking some pictures. There are several, so they are up on Google Picasa: https://picasaweb.google.com/danjar...&authkey=Gv1sRgCIza39Lfgq76OA&feat=directlink
 
That's a gigantic stone alright. Interesting... Maybe it is for swords :rolleyes:

Oh, and good to see you back, Bart :thumbup:
 
Nothing I wrote in my earlier post about how this one odd specimen might lead to generalizations of the "A Coticule purchase is like buying a lottery ticket" kind, was aimed at any of the fine gentlemen contributing to this conversation. If any of you got that impression, I apologize.

The "lottery ticket" concoction originates at one particular forum about straight razor shaving, where a former Coticule reseller, with whom Ardennes stopped doing business, for reasons I don't care to reveal, loves to spread this "opinion". There are a few other guys there eager to amplify the word, again for reasons I shall not care to reveal, but that have nothing to do with the properties of Coticule rock.
Anyway, I receive at least one e-mail monthly from a newly arriving razor sharpener, who's hesitating to purchase a Coticule, on account of all this.
That's my slight frustration for writing yesterday's post.

The Coticule under discussion sounds like a great bevel setter to me. Has anyone though of finishing the job on the Blue side?

Kind regards,
Bart.

PS. Thanks for the Welcome back, Paul. I had a lovely family vacation in Dr. Ralfson's land. Though I didn't see him around. :(
 
Bart said:
The Coticule under discussion sounds like a great bevel setter to me. Has anyone though of finishing the job on the Blue side?
Kind regards,
Bart.
:(

Mr Bart Youre words sound familiar to me. As an maitance encharged eng. in plants, I only heard bad things. When I did the right thing, I was doing my job. at least in others opinion.

:blink:

But about this words above, I agree with you, and the bevel setting is very important. Maybe, the most im´portant part.

A question. Have you tried finishing on the blue side?
All natural and hand made things are different. Each one is unic.
Thats teh beauty of life..
 
You well come back Bart. I trust your vacations was excellent. Now i can wish you <have a good and healthy winder >as the Greeks used to say Concerning the large stone i tried i never said is not suitable for razors . Of Course you can hone a razor but personally i never got a HHT more than 2 from coticule. But by this you can take a good shave.Contrary the blue side is absolutely normal as the other coticules.That's why i guess that this kind of hones selected for woodworkers too, because of the large size and the yellow side roughness.
Best regards
Emmanuel
 
Back
Top