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BBW method question

Well, now everyone has got me curious.....I have to try the BBW honing.

I used to use BBW in the honing progression - after the last dilution on the coticule, I'd switch to a thin slurry on BBW, dilute it to just water, then finish off with water on the coticule. Still, I never tried to 'finish' on a BBW.

Reading the BBW report and the threads it has spawned makes me want to give it a shot.
 
BBW likes a thicker slurry than Coticule. Other than that it is far easier to reach a much keener edge for me on any BBW I have tried which is 3 so far.
 
Just used it on a Hess SS blade.

The razor was pretty close to shave-ready already. It did seem to work pretty well for this blade. The only area which didn't get keen was the point (slight smile). I'll have to go back and work on that.

I haven't shaved with it, of course. I'll do that once the whole blade meets my sharpness expectations.
 
Right, that's what I'll use to take care of the point.

A little later.......

Yep, that took care of it. HHT results are okay (2-3)...with experience it may get better. We'll see.

Shave test tomorrow, though I may hit the hones again before that.
 
life2short1971 said:
Again I am not used to having use a feather touch with coticule edge and razor burn appeared again. I will admit it was my own fault for continuing because I realized at the very start the shave was well past brisk and there were signs of above average keenness I didn't heed.
Click to expand...

This was my experience also, but I did my usual strop ALOT. Now when I gave it a few laps on the LPB w/ water, it toned it back down to a very decent shave. 'Took about 20 laps, and I prob. should have tried 10.

OK. Just did first duliblue. 'Hard to write without exploding with superlatives. Absolutely the finest edge I've gotten from any belgian rock. Dr. Ralphy - Holy Cow! Followed to the letter, using a short strop - so it was 75/110. Test shaves have minimal beard prep & are expected to be less spectacular than normal. This was amazing. Normal blade angles were available due to the absence of tape. I'm gonna shave w/ these edges for quite a while. Only the best asagi finishes exceeded this performance, and that's usually w/ some tweaking to get it perfect. This was phenomenal.

Dr. Ralphy - I can't thank you enough.
 
wasn't totally happy with the shave i had previously, so decided to even it up a little.

started with at midway through a uniblue w/o tape, and found that with thicker slurry on a BBW, circles are more effective at spot-honing or in general at that stage. switched to half-strokes at a lighter dilution until i was at a just-about-catch&pop. then i applied tape, did about 50 backstrokes and stropped.

The result was a confident catch and pop, but the catch part was a little rough before it pops. basically not super keen.

I might either give it another 60 leather, or dull and use your method Dr. Ralfson.
-sets of 50 halfstrokes at thick slurry
-100 x-strokes at milky-slurry
-100 x-strokes at misty water-slurry

How many sets of 50 halfstrokes do you generally use? up to AHT? it seems with that many halfstrokes to a set, it might only take two sets of halfstrokes. Also, how thick is your thick slurry? i think i might be overdoing it with the initial slurry. i've just been watching Bart's dilucot video and starting out with a slightly thicker slurry (with a correct bevel).


Update:

I dulled and did 6 sets of 50 halfstrokes, then 100 x on a slightly less than milky slurry and 120 on misty. got better than a 3 but not quite an effortless 4 off the stone. not much improvement after stropping, but surprisingly good results!

this should be a noted method! another success Ralf!
 
Well done, it seems like you are getting the hang of it nicely, I generally do about 4 sets of half strokes to pass the AHT, and start with a slurry that is just slightly thicker than I use on a Coticule.

Thank you for the kind words, and whilst I have been trying to keep the method going, it is worth noting that the Dilublue was our own Sir Barts invention, based of course on the Dilucot (old Dilucot, before we started using half strokes throughout the process) I am currently embarking on testing the Dilublue to see if we can implement halfstrokes throughout the process, and then finish on regular X strokes.

Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
I gave it another 45 on water. With a quick wipe, and a few stripping movements on my forearm to clean the edge, I a
Getting a solid 4 off the stone. After class I'm going home, stripping and shaving.

It is currently popping hairs better than a brand new derby Shavette blade.

I'd say that's something. Now what is an actual coticule capable of...?
 
Great stuff :)

Indeed the BBW does impart a very sharp edge, and quite easily, the harder part is getting that edge as smooth as a Coticule can, I honestly believe, and the OTB report confirms this, that a good BBW edge is as nice as a good Coticule edge, so far far what is eluding me, is using the BBW to produce an edge as 'magical' as a perfect Coticule edge can be, I don't often achieve that with a Coticule, I know most of us don't either, don't get me wrong a great Coticule edge is to me better than anything else I have tried, so a great BBW edge is on a par, it's just that tiny tiny almost indecernable extra bit of keenness and smoothness that I am still trying to squeeze out of our humble BBW

enough of my ramblings, congrats to everyone that is finding success with this :)

Best regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
Chalk up another success story here. Experimented with the BBW side of my LPB last night. Dulled on glass then went to heavy slurry on the BBW, did 50 half strokes on each side for several dilutions and then checked the edge and it was popping hair like no tomorrow. So I did 100 laps on milky slurry then 100 or so on misty slurry. Easy HHT4 off the stone.

Then, I wanted to see what the edge 'felt' like on the Coti side. Really to see how much suction I had on the hone, and it was like a magnet! So I did 50 extremely light laps on the Yellow side under running water. It brought the HHT down slightly, but then after stropping it was incredible. This onw is going to shave well. Thanks for all of the tips!!

Also, I had a crazy thought after honing this way. Anyone ever lapped the side of their combo stone and done a Dilucot on it? A little mix of blue and yellow slurry on a narrow combo hone might be a cool experiment.
 
I bet many of us have used the side of the stone for those problematic blades. Works great, but I don't know that it is because of the combination. D
 
dnullify said:
Now what is an actual coticule capable of...?
Click to expand...
when it comes to the end results, the answer is: the same.

A Coticule is considerably faster and therefor able to reach deeper into serious dullness than a BBW.

And of course the feel and look different.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Bart said:
dnullify said:
Now what is an actual coticule capable of...?
Click to expand...
when it comes to the end results, the answer is: the same.

A Coticule is considerably faster and therefor able to reach deeper into serious dullness than a BBW.

And of course the feel and look different.

Kind regards,
Bart.
Click to expand...

I completely agree, and I actually find it significantly easier to reach those results with my coticules. I've only reached really keen edges on the BBW using the Uniblue approach. I have yet to master dilublue, but I haven't been working on it that much... With my new collection of La Petite Blanches, I just have a hard time doing anything on any other stones :blush:
 
Well, i may have miss-assessed the HHT using the dilublue. just shaved, again no cuts or burn but it wasn't all that gentle or smooth. it got passably close on my neck with two WTG passes and i couldn't do ATG.

perhaps another 100 more x-strokes

it might be worth mentioning that i've got somewhat bristly beard and the neck area is a trouble-area, and i think i might need an exceptionally keen edge.
 
Dennis, I'm curious to know if you've ever done the dilublue on "The World's Best Coticule"? During the time that I was struggling with that stone, I'd tried the blue side more than once and never achieved much with it. I've tried two other Blue stones and had excellent shaves from them. But of the other stones I've tried, they've all had those tiny pink dots to one degree or another, and, if memory serves, the backing of that vintage stone has none.
 
I have noticed that the keenest edges off the BBW for me come from the stones that feel the slickest on plain water.The two that are the least slick I would like to note have absolutely no signs of pink dots or blotches at all.
 
What works best for me is a slight slurry, water alone doesnt quite cut it (sic) 2 rubs of the slurry stone works a treat :thumbup:

Best regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
I have not really done a dilublue, but only a touch up to test the viability of the procedure, and that was not on your stone. I have a couple with pink dots so used them. We are all sheep. (When I say I, I mean me...The Grinch.) I will give it a go and let you know....Muhammed Ali
 
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