Help with Coticule ID

[DG7]

I'm trying to use the Vault pictures to try and identify my Coticule, but I'm not having too much luck.

On the one hand, I think it looks a lot like No. 24 (La Nouvelle Veine), on another kind of like No. 60 (La Grosse Blanche), but then again I think it looks like a couple of La Dressante's.

If you look at the surface in the right light, it has some white spots like No. 24. It's a little hard to see, but it's in the third picture.

An overview. In the glare on the right, you can see where some of the spots are. They just look like tiny holes/depressions, but they turn white if you're looking in the right light.

Shows the side. It's glued to a slate baking.

View of the corner. You can see those white spots I talked about. There's a bit of dried slurry on the corner.

Another top view.

Same view, but with a layer of water on top.

Corner again, but wet.

Another view of the side. Again, that's slate on the bottom.

Any ideas appreciated, thanks.

 

[Bart]

Those faint blue lines showing up on the lateral side of the Coticule slice are consistent with La Nouvelle Veine.
But it seems to be from the upper parts of that layer (that's why it's not a combo stone like n°24 is) Generally the upper parts of La Nouvelle Veine are moderately fast. The one's I've tested were engaging to mellow finishers.

Kind regards,
Bart.

 

[DG7]

Bart,

Thank you very much for the info. It seems to behave more like No. 8 in the Vault, if anything. I'm still learning honing in general, but am getting pretty close with Diluticot. Next time I'll spend a little more time going from slurry to water and see if that helps.

 

[DG7]

Success!

Based on the info from N[sup]o[/sup].8, I went back to one razor that was never quite there on previous Diluticot efforts. This time, I did much slower strokes (instead of racing through the process), and spent more time during the dilution and finishing phases. I simply did more dilution steps with a smaller drop of water from my finger, rather than a big drop (finger load) like I did before.

I know there's still room for improvement, but wow, I had the best shave ever from a razor I personally honed today! Probably on the low end of what you'd call "shave ready", and I'm sure a honemeister would do more work with it, but I'm doing this just for my own enjoyment and I'd consider it an acceptable shave. The best thing about it was that it was oh so smooth! I'm not sure what hones were used on the razors I've bought that are shave ready, but this seems to be about the smoothest shave with a straight razor that I remember. This must be what everyone raves about when they talk about the edge off of a Coticule!

Thank you very much for this wonderful resource.

 

[Bart]

N°8 is indeed probably a nephew of yours. Good thinking.:thumbup:

Thanks for posting about your results. If you haven't done so already, you should try the Unicot appraoch at least once on that hone. With Dilucot, experience plays indeed an important role in the final outcome. But your Unicot edge will likely be as good as mine, because it's so much easier to attain good keenness with it. If you wantt to know how good your Dilucot edges are, compare them with Unicot.

Kind regards,
Bart.

 

[DG7]

I previously had tried Unicot on a wedge, but it seemed like the second bevel was only on the center part of the blade, where there was a significant smile.

I took that same Boker I had used with Diluticot, and worked on it with Unicot last night. Today's shave was absolutely fabulous! One of my best ever, though that's not saying too much as I'm pretty new to this. It was reallying mowing down my beard without any hesitation at all.

 

[tat2Ralfy]

I previously had tried Unicot on a wedge, but it seemed like the second bevel was only on the center part of the blade, where there was a significant smile.

By the sounds of it, your stroke was a little off, every smiling blade I have ever unicoted took the same micro bevel along its entire length.

Best regards
Ralfson (Dr)

 

[DG7]

I think it was just poor technique on my part. It was quite hard for me to work on bevel correction in the first place, and I probably spent a couple of hours on DMT and Norton hones, over a couple of different evenings. The heel and toe were the hardest parts, so that's probably why Unicot worked better in the middle. I'll have to go back and try again sometime.

 

[Bart]

I took that same Boker I had used with Diluticot, and worked on it with Unicot last night. Today's shave was absolutely fabulous! One of my best ever, though that's not saying too much as I'm pretty new to this. It was reallying mowing down my beard without any hesitation at all.

That's great! :thumbup:

Kind regards,
Bart.

 

[Disburden]

My only coticule is from the same layer as this one and it is very very fast in slurry. If you try to go the dilucot method of honing on this make sure to slow down the dilution process as it's easily to lose the keenness step in the water if you dilute too fast.

 

[DG7]

My only coticule is from the same layer as this one and it is very very fast in slurry. If you try to go the dilucot method of honing on this make sure to slow down the dilution process as it's easily to lose the keenness step in the water if you dilute too fast.

On my latest tries with Dilucot (for some reason I was erroneously calling it Diluticot), I've been getting better results with less water per dilution step, more dilution steps, and a few more strokes per step (around 20). This seems to help with keenness, for me anyway.

 

[Disburden]

My only coticule is from the same layer as this one and it is very very fast in slurry. If you try to go the dilucot method of honing on this make sure to slow down the dilution process as it's easily to lose the keenness step in the water if you dilute too fast.

On my latest tries with Dilucot (for some reason I was erroneously calling it Diluticot), I've been getting better results with less water per dilution step, more dilution steps, and a few more strokes per step (around 20). This seems to help with keenness, for me anyway.

sounds right, that's what I was trying to explain to try. :thumbup: