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Nº 49 from the vault (repository 1)

Paul

Well-Known Member
I finally put down my Les Latneuses, feeling like I have a fair understanding of it, and I decided to start working on nº 46 from the vault. As Bart mentioned, this stone is unusual considering it is almost eggplant colored but raises a normal looking coticule slurry. It changed to grey almost immediately, but it didn't turn much darker after the initial color change. It was weird. One thing of note, the coticule part of this stone broke in half and separated from the BBW. This left me with a long BBW half backed with coticule and one big (almost ideally sized) piece of coticule. This session was with the long BBW and Coticule...

If you look at the picture, you can clearly see some uneven areas. Since it is so thin on the coticule part (bbw is starting to show through), I decided that I'd just use a small piece of sandpaper to smooth the transitions and not worry about getting the unevenness out of it.

The result:
It was much faster than I expected reading Bart's summary. I mostly go by feel on the dilution, and I went through it very quickly. It reminded me of my les latneuses in that it seemed to suck the blade to the stone. It didn't take long at all, and after stropping, it was a HHT-4. Test shave tonight, I'll update the thread :)
 
Thank you for posting about that one Paul. I am very eager to find out what you think of it. It's a very rare piece of Coticule, that originates from the La Petite Blanche layer.

If you could post some pictures of it's current state, I would love to see them. I also tested on a part of it, for it was just too long to use the full length. It probably would have been better if they trimmed it into 2 Coticules.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
I will definitely try the BBW side :sneaky:

Here are some pics of the big stone for your viewing pleasure. I left the other small piece at my apartment, but I'll add pictures of it when I go back there.

[img=800]1[/img]
[img=800]2[/img]
[img=800]3[/img]
 
richmondesi said:
Gunner777 said:
Very cool! Your right Bart it would have made two easily.
It's two now anyway ;)

If it was mine, I'd trim off the blue part with a hacksaw (I've explained the procedure briefly in Torolf's thread) and glue the loose Coticule back one. Because it's a perfect fit, you can use CA glue. Works very well, and you'll end up with 2 identical, serviceable Coticules.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Bart said:
richmondesi said:
Gunner777 said:
Very cool! Your right Bart it would have made two easily.
It's two now anyway ;)

If it was mine, I'd trim off the blue part with a hacksaw (I've explained the procedure briefly in Torolf's thread) and glue the loose Coticule back one. Because it's a perfect fit, you can use CA glue. Works very well, and you'll end up with 2 identical, serviceable Coticules.

Kind regards,
Bart.

That's actually the plan, but I haven't had done it yet. As I said, I've been on the Les Latneuses learning curve for a while.
 
DE JA VUE! :w00t:

This reminded me of the first successful unicot edge off of nº23 from the vault. When it first touched my face, I wondered if I missed the mark a bit because it felt so dull on my face. Yet, the whiskers were gone, and I couldn't help smiling like I had found an old friend. You see, my brother has had mine for several months now, and I've been using some stones from other veins with great success. But there's just something special about that La Petite Blanche as it relates to my style I guess... 3 passes, no blood, no hair using my POS Dovo ;)

Another interesting note is that if you look at the second picture above, you'll see that the stone is visually uneven ("Did you lap it?!?!?!?! :rolleyes: ).... I just did a standard dilucot using the new protocol (half strokes but not counting, going by feel)...I didn't even check HHT until after stropping. My my my... how times have changed :sleep: :thumbup:

Can I take a moment now to say something off topic? This isn't about me being "good" or anything else. It's about it not being that hard if you put in the time to learn a good stroke and good feel. I have a natural tremor that makes me look like Mr. Chicken when holding a piece of paper during a presentation (not nerves, but a natural tremor). I've got no special talent, but it's just not that hard....

I'm looking forward to many more sessions with nº 49! :thumbup:
 
My my...what a beautiful stone! But I was more intrigued by your comment about your 'modified dilucot' protocol (going by feel as opposed to counting) How long did you hone before you were able to do that? Do you go back to the counting method you're on a new hone? IIRC Gary also hones by feel as well as others I'm sure.

My end goal is to become proficient enough with my coti that I would be able to do the same. So far, my coti is crooing to me in sweet sweet Dutch. I have no idea what she's saying but I don't want her to stop.
 
dreka said:
My my...what a beautiful stone! But I was more intrigued by your comment about your 'modified dilucot' protocol (going by feel as opposed to counting) How long did you hone before you were able to do that? Do you go back to the counting method you're on a new hone? IIRC Gary also hones by feel as well as others I'm sure.

To be honest, I don't know the answer to this question. I was honing on synthetics and Japanese naturals prior to this so I'm not sure how much was previous understanding of feel and feedback and how much is learning from the coticule. I started off with the standard Unicot, but the dilucot procedure was more about feel and understanding slurry anyway. So, if you were doing the old dilucot, you had a pretty good idea about the feel.

dreka said:
My end goal is to become proficient enough with my coti that I would be able to do the same. So far, my coti is crooing to me in sweet sweet Dutch. I have no idea what she's saying but I don't want her to stop.

Keep paying it attention, and you'll get there! :thumbup:

Second session update:

Boring, same old story, but with the broken half of the stone. This was on my formerly NOS Puma (who doesn't love Pumas?), and it passed at a very strong HHT-4 on my 7 year old daughter's hair (pulled from her brush). I suspect it will be slightly more keen than the DOVO from last night. I'm looking forward to the shave.

BTW, Bart, the idea of adding a little pressure and using half-strokes on the dilution stage of dilucot was a stroke of genius. My honing time is virtually nothing.
 
So, I finally got around to test shaving my Puma. It was excellent. I don't think I'll be without a la petite blanche stone again! Please keep scooping up all les latneuses so the demand on la petite blanche will go down! Man, this stone is really nice. I don't think I'll ever part with it, although I may give one to my 2 year old son when he gets ready to start out...

I could scarcely be happier with this stone.
 
richmondesi said:
I could scarcely be happier with this stone.

That is good to hear, Paul. It does come form the La Petite Blanche Layer, an albeit the odd color, it indeed seems to perform just like the rest of them.
When we were at Ardennes during the Pilgrimage, Maurice stated that BBWs with pink dots have always been considered of the very best quality. I only realized it yesterday, but those pink dots actually have exactly the same color as the entire Coticule part of this hone. I now wonder if there's any relation.

:thumbup:
Bart.
 
Very cool and interesting remarks on the edge produced. I almost regret passing this one up when I had the chance!
 
Update:

I hacksawed the bbw off the other stone and used some type of clue to bind it together to the coticule part. Now I have 2 of these beauties. Pics later.

Regarding the slurry, the yellow-ish slurry I noted before was due to the slurry stone used. Having the two separated, I decided to raise slurry with them. The slurry was the same color as the stones, and it didn't grey as quickly... I honed a little razor that my brother gave me, and it had some small (barely visible) chips in the edge. It removed them very quickly. I'm not test shaving it for a while, due to an unfortunate deal I made :D
 
richmondesi said:
I'm not test shaving it for a while, due to an unfortunate deal I made :D

Hahahahaha you should have gone for Sundays off like me .....lol

Best wishes
Ralfson (Dr)
 
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