Easiest to use?

[mrmaroon]

I've been reading around lately and I keep running into the questing "What layer should I use for an easy dilocot?" questions. In the beginning I wondered this myself. Usually the answer is a layer that is fast on slurry and on water is the best bet. For me though, I can't seem to get those types of coticules to work! I can dilocot on my hybrid coticule and my "italian old rock" very easily, they slurry dull the least. The faster ones I own, a petite blanche, a veinette, and a les latneuses. I can't get to work nearly as well. The petite blanche is giving me the most trouble.

With my Latnueses hybrid I can pass HHT-3 maybe 4 almost every time. The other hones I struggle to get even an HHT-3. With the petite blanche I can only get an HHT-2.

Another weird thing is that when I finish one nicely on the hybrid and then go to finish on the Petite, it drops back down to a HHT2 again:scared: . It just surprises me, because I hear a lot about people getting good results with them. Ive tried a lot of different things, starting my dilution from different points, setting good bevels on a Norton 1k. Nothing seems to work right... Are most petite blanches hard to pass the HHT with? I don't test shave as much as I should, because I only shave every 3 days or so. It is hard for me to shave with 3 days of honed razors and assess what is happening. So I go mostly by the HHT test. My hair is finer, but not super fine.

If you have a petite Blanche, do you use very light pressure? How many laps do you usually do to finish?

Thanks,
MrMaroon

 

[dreka]

Though I'm still an ubernoob, I think fast on slurry and fast on water coticules are more difficult to 'master'. The reason being is that there is too much slurry dulling before the razor can reach the proper keenness. I believe the easiest to master are the ones that are medium on slurry and slow on water like the La Veinette layer.

I am interested in finding out what the solution to your problem is though.

 

[mrmaroon]

Veinette is also one of the types I have a difficult time getting right. Ive only gotten two razors honed very well and that was off bart's veinette. The two Ive owned I just can't ever get them to work. It just seems like the slurry is to sandy and even though it is getting diluted there are still deep scratches being made. Finishing on water polishes well, but there are deeper scratches on it still. Bart's veinette was more like a petite blanche with slurry veinette like on water. I mean it felt like fine garnets with slurry but was medium speed with water.

Out of the 7 coticules ive used, my hybrid and Italian old rock are easiest. My vintage coti combo is medium, and my two les latneuses, two veinettes, and petite blanche are very difficult.

I just don't understand why I can finish very well on my hybrid and it just drops when I go to a different hone. It works the same doing 30 laps to 100.

 

[Aquanin]

I am having a lot of success with my 'la petite blanche', here is how I modified the process to make it work for me. I am getting HHT-4 and HHT-5 results after stropping. I started with Bart's exact instructions on the new dilucot method and it didn't work that well for me. Shaveable but not that great. Then I decided I would dilute faster with more steps. I was doing something like 20 half strokes each side then diluting with 1 finger load of water, ten times. I changed this to 12-15 half strokes adding 1 fingerload about 10-15 times, then I start doing 2 finger loads between sets, then when its almost fully diluted, I wash half the stone off (the blade will still have some slurry on it) and do another set., then I fully wash the stone off and do another set. Then wash the stone and razor off and do another set. Then its on to just very, very light x strokes.

If you still dont like it do this: do like 7 laps on a balsa crox strop, then do 20 more light laps on the coti. Then linen and leather.

I timed myself and it take a tad under 10 mins from dulling to shave ready. It just seems with the stones that have alot of slurry dulling, you need to add more steps and keep things hydrated big time.

Hope that helps.

 

[jkh]

I am having a lot of success with my 'la petite blanche', here is how I modified the process to make it work for me. I am getting HHT-4 and HHT-5 results after stropping. I started with Bart's exact instructions on the new dilucot method and it didn't work that well for me. Shaveable but not that great. Then I decided I would dilute faster with more steps. I was doing something like 20 half strokes each side then diluting with 1 finger load of water, ten times. I changed this to 12-15 half strokes adding 1 fingerload about 10-15 times, then I start doing 2 finger loads between sets, then when its almost fully diluted, I wash half the stone off (the blade will still have some slurry on it) and do another set., then I fully wash the stone off and do another set. Then wash the stone and razor off and do another set. Then its on to just very, very light x strokes.

If you still dont like it do this: do like 7 laps on a balsa crox strop, then do 20 more light laps on the coti. Then linen and leather.

I timed myself and it take a tad under 10 mins from dulling to shave ready. It just seems with the stones that have alot of slurry dulling, you need to add more steps and keep things hydrated big time.

Hope that helps.

Excellent post and advise. I have noticed the similar results with my La Dressante, which is quite fast with slurry. I have to have my slurry fairly diluted before I even get the shaving arm hair stage.

 

[garyhaywood]

i no where your coming from . i have had mega results and then ofg certain coticules not so good . why i'm not sure. my hybrid side i can get out standing shaves i love it. this was not always the case. The hht of the hone if i get it right is very good indeed. My cream side i've not worked with so much. This side is fastest cutter i have owned, its great to hone on and i can manage a good result , with some more time i would crack it. my la grosse jaune was the first coticule i ever experianced that magical shave from. So i thought this is my best coticule. infact it is good coticule untill i had a thew more times where the edge did'nt quite get there.

It's only the last 2 months that i have been hitting the best edges i could only imagine. HHT on very fine blonde hair spliting from 1 to 2 inch away from holding point, and just resting on the edge with hardly any pressure. the shaves have been efortless.Coticules are so frustrating, but you will work it out.

what i do is bevel set.
dilucot on my hybrid using 20 to 25 laps per half set, with good stroke a real concentration , even pressure. Finish on water and work on hone untill i get catch and apop. it has to be good 3 to 4 hht which can be acheived.then i finish on my la grosse jaune. why because this hone gaurantees me a extra smooth edge.Also improves hht if needed.

Now the other day i got a hht 3/4 of hybrid side. then i honed on lagrosse jaune as usaul tested hht and it dropped back . i then went back to hybrid side and the hht picked back up. so i went back to la grosse jaune and did very light slow laps and i sustained the hht back to a nice 4. Weird. But this happend to this particular razor or may be it was my stroke.

all in all i would say i have good results with most coticules. medium cutters may be are easier.One thing i'm sure of is the longer coticule seems to work very well for me. I've come to the conclusion that i like 8inch long and no wider than 40 to 50 mm or less. i always use TI paste as finisher to obtain that extra keeness. i can onestly say i don't need it going by my latest edges.

 

[garyhaywood]

i no where your coming from . i have had mega results and then ofg certain coticules not so good . why i'm not sure. my hybrid side i can get out standing shaves i love it. this was not always the case. The hht of the hone if i get it right is very good indeed. My cream side i've not worked with so much. This side is fastest cutter i have owned, its great to hone on and i can manage a good result , with some more time i would crack it. my la grosse jaune was the first coticule i ever experianced that magical shave from. So i thought this is my best coticule. infact it is good coticule untill i had a thew more times where the edge did'nt quite get there.

It's only the last 2 months that i have been hitting the best edges i could only imagine. HHT on very fine blonde hair spliting from 1 to 2 inch away from holding point, and just resting on the edge with hardly any pressure. the shaves have been efortless.Coticules are so frustrating, but you will work it out.

what i do is bevel set.

easiest coticule to use for me has to 8 inch long and medium cutter. i would say my hybrid is nice and its very magnetic as in easy to keep control of the blade.
dilucot on my hybrid using 20 to 25 laps per half set, with good stroke a real concentration , even pressure. Finish on water and work on hone untill i get catch and apop. it has to be good 3 to 4 hht which can be acheived.then i finish on my la grosse jaune. why because this hone gaurantees me a extra smooth edge.Also improves hht if needed.

Now the other day i got a hht 3/4 of hybrid side. then i honed on lagrosse jaune as usaul tested hht and it dropped back . i then went back to hybrid side and the hht picked back up. so i went back to la grosse jaune and did very light slow laps and i sustained the hht back to a nice 4. Weird. But this happend to this particular razor or may be it was my stroke.

all in all i would say i have good results with most coticules. medium cutters may be are easier.One thing i'm sure of is the longer coticule seems to work very well for me. I've come to the conclusion that i like 8inch long and no wider than 40 to 50 mm or less. i always use TI paste as finisher to obtain that extra keeness. i can onestly say i don't need it going by my latest edges.

 

[Bart]

O.K. I'm retiring myself.
You guys gives such great advice that there's hardly anything to add for me...
:thumbup:

Just little something: the Blanches (Petite and Grosse) at both (some exceptions possible with the Grosse) fast on water, with plenty of "slurry dulling", and at the same time, very slow on water, almost mere polishers.
In other words, there is a lot of keenness to make up for and it is very easy to run ahead of the edge, so that it stops following, while you slowly evolve to pure water. They're among the best layers, but require sufficient experience.
Furthermore, these are generally two layers that create a mellow edge. You must never make a direct comparison the HHT of a mellow Coticule with that of a brisk Coticule. Before stropping it, the brisk edge will certainly perform a little (a half point or so) better on the HHT. As stated many times before, the HHT is not a goal. It's a probing test. You have to know what to expect with which hair on which hone. La Grosse Blanches will typically reach a slightly lower HHT-reading. I suspect they leave a very smooth edge, with almost no jaggedness at a sub-microscopic level. Brisk edges might be just a tad more jagged at the same level, which would certainly aid the performance, but at the same time have a slightly more peeling effect on the skin. This is an unconfirmed theory, that I hope to clear out with the upcoming SEM-experiment.
In any case, when properly stropped, both edges will pass the HHT with great ease and shave very well. I still find it a personal preference, which type of edge I like best: brisk, engaging, or mellow. It depends of the weather and my mood.

There. If you guys thought you could shut me out from giving all the good advice.:sneaky:

Kind regards,
Bart.

 

[garyhaywood]

the other test i use is. when i have finished my second to last half strokes . before my final rinse.I'm near the sink and my whole hand gets wetted and i gently flick the edge across the side of thumb. I no just by the way the dge grips and feels if i'm sharp enough . The feeling is a very strong and i mean sticky like you carn't imagine. If its not i no for a fact i've lost sharpness and will need to go back to some slurry level to regain that sticky ness.It happend to me last week. I did the quik test only once i new. I tryed hht at the end just to make sure. no violin at all , so i started back on slurry . repeated dilucot tested on side of thumb. This time i thought that there , its a good little test also. i don't use it to often as the thumbe get amune to the tpt . i find the thumbe becomes less sensative . Just a quik, flick over and that works. The edge should realy grip and feel so tacky, where it drags your thumb back

 

[wdwrx]

This is a great thread! Some pretty good advice.
Aquanin's post re: dilution has helped me a bit. I'd been wondering about slurry management lately; sometimes it seems that I'm not really diluting much, so I'd been working towards the idea of diluting more drasticaly. In the same vein, I've been starting with a thinner slurry, and thinner yet every time I've done another iteration. So after reading this thread, I thought i'd take a more direct approach and actively lose some of the slurry as i went. I think it's helped. As I get closer to the end, I begin to extend the sets, and reduce pressure, ultimalty finishing each dilution with several light x-strokes. This has worked well with my new Dressante, but not so much with my vintage.

Gary, are you getting those HHT results off the stones or are you stropping first?

Cheers,
-Chris

 

[garyhaywood]

This is a great thread! Some pretty good advice.
Aquanin's post re: dilution has helped me a bit. I'd been wondering about slurry management lately; sometimes it seems that I'm not really diluting much, so I'd been working towards the idea of diluting more drasticaly. In the same vein, I've been starting with a thinner slurry, and thinner yet every time I've done another iteration. So after reading this thread, I thought i'd take a more direct approach and actively lose some of the slurry as i went. I think it's helped. As I get closer to the end, I begin to extend the sets, and reduce pressure, ultimalty finishing each dilution with several light x-strokes. This has worked well with my new Dressante, but not so much with my vintage.

Gary, are you getting those HHT results off the stones or are you stropping first?

Cheers,
-Chris

criss i can get a good catch and pop of the hone with the two brown hair samples i sent you not with the blonde. after linen and horshide i get hht with blonde real easy. if you strop the blade i sent you linen then horse hide you should be able to pop the blonde hair on your joseph haywood. of the hone i use about 1 and a bit inch in lenght and if i can catch and pop from aprox half inch from holding point i'm there.

i found it does'nt matter how thick your slurry is to start with . so long as you dilute from that point you should be ok. oviously i would'nt start with dense slurry but a nice creamy slurry . a couple of dilutions and you should be at milky stages and so on. once bevel is set or shaving arm hair . i just dilute and i start with 15 to 20 laps as time goes on i may do 25 to 30 laps taking my time . i also dilute untill slurry has realy gone and i'm well down to water . after final laps on water i rest my hone rewet and do some more on water.

 

[tat2Ralfy]

O.K. I'm retiring myself.
You guys gives such great advice that there's hardly anything to add for me...
:thumbup:

There. If you guys thought you could shut me out from giving all the good advice.:sneaky:

Kind regards,
Bart.

Who is this Bart fellow anyway

Bwhahahahaha

 

[wdwrx]

Gary, that's exactly what I was working towards, that "catch and pop" you've described (with the thick hair). I did 5 full dilutions, each one but the first starting with a very light slurry. One pass of the slurry stone, and even then, for the last two rounds, I wiped half of it away before starting, and going to well past the point where i could even see the slurry. I also used more water to dilute, maybe twice what I had been. Kind of a "pyramid" type approach, i guess you could say, where I kept going back a step before moving forward. It took that full 5 times to finally get a catch and pop off the stone. Each set seemed to inch me just a little closer. I've also been resting my hone between slurry and water stages, ( I have been for a while now, ever since i fist heard your suggestion to) but I can't tell if it really makes a difference.

My kindest regards,
-Chris

 

[garyhaywood]

i'm sure it will depend on your coticule . i find my hybrid when finishing as a little abrasion in the way my blade can jiter a little on water . i'm sure this caused by the abrasion of honing wioth so many laps . once my hone settles the razor glides like its on silk again . thats the main reason i rest my hone . and i have noticed a better catch and pop

 

[mrmaroon]

Sorry for the late reply guys, I was at another BBQ competition. We set a new world record by the way, 4 straight wins in a row!! You can check out our progress here http://www.nationalbbqrankings.com/ranking/team/7071 . You will see no other team h as the luck we do!

Anyways, back to coticules. I have noticed that my Les Latnueses Bout 9's regular side is damn near the same as my petite blanche. It is rapid with slurry and fast on water. It has the same feedback and even the same coloring. Pink, with black lines on a smooth cream texture. The feel with slurry and speed is exactly the same as well.

My 8X2 Latnueses is a little different, the hybrid is slightly softer and faster on slurry. The regular side I am still convinced is a weird one. I think I may have the exeption to the fast latnueses rule on this one. The regular side is very very soft, I can dig into it easily with my fingernail. Once I even sliced into it with my razor. With slurry it is very slow, about as slow as my vintage 1.25x6. The weird thing about it is the feedback on slurry. There is none! It has no sense of abrasion at all. It never will get black, only slightly grey even. On water however, this hone kills all the others for speed. The sad thing is even though it is fast on water I have never found how to utilize that.

I read a lot on here and SRP that a fast hone on water will make up for keenness on a slower dilocot. I have found this not to be the case. If I dilocot my hybrid (I can hit HHT-3 with this one 75% of the time first try) and it doesn't work out like gary said, I sometime just try the regular side for kicks. So far all it does is leave a coarser scratch pattern. I know this has little to do with the resulting edge, you can get great edges off coticules with a coarser pattern, But it never seems to hit right. The speed on water is comparable to a barber hone. If I do try it, I use NO pressure at all.

Here is a shot of the two. The petite blanche like latnueses on the left, the super soft one on the right.

My Blanche does get dark quickly with water only, even when using little pressure. I read on here about the slurry dulling with them and I always start with watery milk at the least. I will test your guys' advice on it and dilute faster. With my hair I can rarely manage an HHT 3 off the hone. Bart, I stole a few of your hairs and it has increased my honing by a whole HHT point (joking).

Here are some shots of the Blanche

I do use the TPT, but eventually my thumbs get so scarred from doing it that I have to slice off that top layer and wait 2-3 days for it to grow back in.

The good deal is I've found a coticule I can work with and have GOOD CONSISTANT results. Because of that i'm stocking up with more just to test the different layers and shapes. I can test the edges against my hybrid as a benchmark. If I had to keep one, I would never be able to choose between my two latnuses. The Bout has the best regular side, the square has the best hybrid!

Bart, I hear you say a lot about the smoothness of the grosse blanche, if you had to rank roughly a grosse, hybrid, and juaune, where would they place smoothest to least smooth? I have a hard time believing that anything could be smoother than the edge the glasslike hybrid produces.

Also, would anyone want to test one of my edges? I would have no problem sending razors out for people to give me feedback. Over the past month I have bounced off of another plateau and am on the rise again. I need to document all my original problems from start to now for new people to read if it would help them.

Sorry for the chopped up, hard read, I haven't slept in 40 hours and it is hard to address everyone! I thank you all for your advice, more on this tomorrow!

Caleb