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Le Petite Blanche

B

Basil

Well-Known Member
Howdy all,

I just bought this stone not too long ago and have been playing with it for about a month now. The stone is a natural combo stone about 6x2 and is said to be from the petite blanche layer. Do the marking on it match markings for said layer?

The stone itself is very smooth and while honing has a soft feeling to it. Compared to my other coticule it gives a great shaving edge that leaves a nice smooth shave.

To use the stone i wet the stone and create a thick to medium slurry. I always tape my spine and then i set off and do laps of ten. After the tenth lap i dilute the slurry with a two-fingered dab of water. I never count how many dilutions i do but i would say its about 5-8

After the final dilution i rinse off both the blade and stone and wet the stone down again so it has a large amount of water on it. I usually do 20-30 laps on just water depending on how the water raises onto the blade and how well it treetops my arm hairs.

So far ive had great success with this method and is giving me the smoothest edge i have ever shaved off of.

I love the shaving edge from a coticule, its smooth and irritation free and even tho ive only had a few shaves with this edge i can tell it appart from harsher edged that come from synthetic stones.

here are the pics of my beautiful stone, ill try to get some pics of my combo next to my selcted coti another time.
[img=800]1[/img]
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I say, what a beautiful stone, thank you for sharing :thumbup:

I have a very slim (14mm ish) Le Petite blanche myself and its my favourite finisher after my Burton series

Photo1266.jpg


I dont know enough about them to give you a positive I.D.
Ahem "Paging Dr Bart" lol

The result you get sound very very good and I find the same with a well carried out Dilucot on mine this is a wonderful layer.

Very very good show Sir

Best Regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
Yes, that is definitely a La Petite Blanche.

They're nearly always natural combo Coticules, because the layer if so thin that no extra slices of Coticule can be cut and glued to slate. Only on the rare occasion that one separates from its natural backing, you'll see one glued.
They always have that thin blue line showing up at the lateral side of the Coticule, combined with a pale surface color that has shows no grain (as i.e. the typical pattern of La Grise and some other layers). Often they have some black manganese lines. The BBW often shows gradual transition from blue to a more purplish hue closer to the coticule layer.

This one is a very typical specimen. A beautiful stone. Good dimensions too. :thumbup:

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Thanks for the info guys.

Bart I was wondering if you were able to tell me about the slurry stone. I often wondered how it would have performed as a full coti. I'm not sure if you can see it in the pics but it has a few layers of different types of coti in it. Any idea what layer it might be?
 
i finally got some pics of my cotis together to just compare the two.

also a closer view of the slurry stone layering.




 
I don't really know. I've seen that kind of banding before, but I don't think they had the layer name determined. I remember that the stone was very hard and also quite slow. Somehow, I don't think that the slurry stone is a La Petite Blanche. That white stuff in the blue lateral line is not fitting with La Petite Blanche. Your pictures don't show a focused view of the surface. Has it a wood-like pattern, or does it appear not figured?

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
I missed your previous post by seconds.:)

I'll have a look later. Gary just called from the airport, I have to go pick him up first.

Bart.
 
the top of the slurry stone is smooth in appearance, the only figuring on it is the cow-like pattern of the pinkish and yellow coti
 
I think that the slurry stone is a La Dressante au Bleu, with also a bit of normal La Dressante (upper layer) on top. Usually they cut in between those two sublayers (hence one that this brown line between both Coticule shades. They probably only had this little piece left at that moment, and didn't bother with taking the upper layer off, and gluing it to a piece of slate. Would have probably been more work than worth it. Hence they just left it a thick slurry stone with 3 layers: BBB - La Dressante a blue - La Dressante upper layer.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
That is one sexy blanche! I bought a 4x2 one after reading about them in the vault. Luckily I got the older prices. I asked ardennes for a grosse blanche, but they didn't have any in the size I wanted. I am still practicing on my petite blanche, I really like the edges off of it, they are killer.
 
I wonder if anyone can give me some info on the coticule. I haven't been able to find anything about it.

Does it look like any known layer? If so what kind of edge can I expect from it?
 
I don't know what hone you're talking about. We've seen a La Petite Blanche. Plenty of information about these on this website.
The other one is a La Dressante. They vary is speed and feedback, so there's not much more to tell from just looking at it.

In the end, all Coticules give very comparable edges. People tend to exaggerate the differences. An experienced Coticule user can sharpen identical razors on all the pictured hones, and you will most likely not be able to tell the edges apart. It's just the way to reach these edges that might show a bit difference.

A La Petite Blanche is usually faster than a La Dressante. But I've seen plenty of exceptions to that general rule. It's the La Dressantes that vary. Not the La Petite Blanches.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
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