Disburden
Well-Known Member
It's be a long journey with me and my coticules since the beginning. I have owned maybe a dozen since I've started shaving with a straight razor and I sold many off thinking they weren't "good enough" to hone a razor on. In the past two weeks I have only used coticules to hone my razors, I only own two coticules now one vintage combo and another a la Verte stone, but I have had very good results as of late. I used Bart's method of dulling the razor and then starting for scratch on the razors I've been shaving with daily. I feel ignorant in thinking that maybe these stones are too variable to hone a razor and only some are fine enough. Thanks to Gary in PMS on other forums I have learned a lot, if you see his posts please follow them as they are very informative. They may be the most helpful of posts I have seen other than Bart's. Bart helped me back in the day learn how to hone my razors but I feel maybe I have strayed off from these stones in the past year or so. I've been using Norton 4/8K as my stand by stone, but now I feel I may not need it anymore. These past few weeks have been nothing less than the best shaves I have ever had with only using a coticule as a hone.
I will add the following tips for those of you that may be frustrated:
1) Patience is a huge key when honing on these stones. They are natural stones and they're all different, you really need to use these stones and figure them out for yourself. The ways of honing on these stones is a simple guide you see on this site or youtube, you need to figure out your own stone.
2) When you can shave arm hair but the shave on your face isn't good enough, you're almost there. Depending on your stone you may just need water and a few sets of half strokes on water to deliver a good shave. Once I can feel a hht of 1 or 2 I move to a strop and strop the heck of out the razor, without paste, usually the hht will hit a 3 or 4. When I say strop the heck I mean 60 passes on linen and then the same on leather.
3). Do NOT rely on slurry TOO much because if your stone is a fast one you will dull the razor on slurry and have to start all over. When I first tried Bart's method I was using a La Nouvelle veine, I didn't know it then but mine was really really fast on slurry and slow as heck on water, this lead to very poor results when following Bart's dilucot on his video...I had to modify my honing a lot on my stone and I didn't realize it. A lot of what you need to achieve will be on water only after a hht of 1 or 2.
4). If you have a very slow coticule it's probably best to hone on a 1K stone until you've set the bevel to shave armhair well and then move to a coticule with a very light slurry for the rest. I used to use a dmt1200 BBW with slurry and then a coticule on water for this but had problems. My issue was that even BBW stones will vary some and you may be using too thick of a slurry on your BBW!
5). Any edge to set with these stones will not need a paste if you're hitting the limit right. What I mean is that if you're going to paste to get a nice shave then you're not finished on your coticule. Please put the pastes away and use pressured half strokes on water until you get a good result. If it takes a week of honing on half strokes with water to get there it's worth it because you will learn your stone more than just hitting pastes as an Alternative.
I hope this helps some people..
nick
I will add the following tips for those of you that may be frustrated:
1) Patience is a huge key when honing on these stones. They are natural stones and they're all different, you really need to use these stones and figure them out for yourself. The ways of honing on these stones is a simple guide you see on this site or youtube, you need to figure out your own stone.
2) When you can shave arm hair but the shave on your face isn't good enough, you're almost there. Depending on your stone you may just need water and a few sets of half strokes on water to deliver a good shave. Once I can feel a hht of 1 or 2 I move to a strop and strop the heck of out the razor, without paste, usually the hht will hit a 3 or 4. When I say strop the heck I mean 60 passes on linen and then the same on leather.
3). Do NOT rely on slurry TOO much because if your stone is a fast one you will dull the razor on slurry and have to start all over. When I first tried Bart's method I was using a La Nouvelle veine, I didn't know it then but mine was really really fast on slurry and slow as heck on water, this lead to very poor results when following Bart's dilucot on his video...I had to modify my honing a lot on my stone and I didn't realize it. A lot of what you need to achieve will be on water only after a hht of 1 or 2.
4). If you have a very slow coticule it's probably best to hone on a 1K stone until you've set the bevel to shave armhair well and then move to a coticule with a very light slurry for the rest. I used to use a dmt1200 BBW with slurry and then a coticule on water for this but had problems. My issue was that even BBW stones will vary some and you may be using too thick of a slurry on your BBW!
5). Any edge to set with these stones will not need a paste if you're hitting the limit right. What I mean is that if you're going to paste to get a nice shave then you're not finished on your coticule. Please put the pastes away and use pressured half strokes on water until you get a good result. If it takes a week of honing on half strokes with water to get there it's worth it because you will learn your stone more than just hitting pastes as an Alternative.
I hope this helps some people..
nick