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Tonight was interesting

Paul

Well-Known Member
So, I spent the evening/large part of the night honing razors with a couple of buddies. Whitebar, mostly a lurker here, and a another guy who lives in the same town as my second home that I met at SRP spent a solid 3 hours honing. Whitebar recently lost his mind and bought 3 coticules :p and lucky for him, there was a La Petite Blanche in the bunch... Lucky I say because I can almost hone a razor blind on one of those.

In fact, that's the point of this thread. I'm in Shreveport, and my HHT hair supply here is too limited to try to take for an extensive honing session (literally 1 long strand). So, I was forced to go totally by feel. I have talked a lot about honing by feel, but I've never been forced to go through a honing session without the aid (crutch :-/ ) of my trusty HHT. It was really an interesting experience.

Knowing I didn't have that option going in, I was really concerned about judging if it was going to be shave ready. However, I went ahead and worked through the process paying special attention to the feel. It was fun to really dial in on the feel, and listening to the stone. So, by the end of the night, I had honed 4 razors on 3 different coticules and one barbers hone using a synthetic slurry stone and doing dilucot-esque technique.

I'm going to have to wait for some full shave tests later, but judging by my totally dry, ATG shave test on 4 day's growth, I'm expecting the results to be great... on all four razors.

Anyway, what I learned is the lessons I "earned" in the early days (before the guidelines of stroke count, dilution, etc.) about understanding the slurry and "listening" to the stone is the most valuable experience in my honing journey. I learned to feel where I was in the process, and from that early experience, I've become a much better honer.

So, while I'm glad there are guidelines in place for people to try, I am glad that I didn't have them in place when I was learning...

Anyway, it was fun to sit around, hone, strop, and chat with a couple guys instead of talking about it with you guys :D

I know you all enjoy such encounters as well, so I thought I'd share a little bit about tonight :)
 
Hmm, this is very interesting and inspiring, actually. Since the acquisition of my La Grosse Blanche I've been kind of re-learning things - getting a new stone at my current skill level is definitely a (not too large, but noticeable) step back. One of the new things is feedback, which - compared to my previous experience with La Dressante - is less pronounced and, what even makes it harder to read right, a bit uneven along the length of the stone, there are places with more or less mica. I feel this affects the feedback and draw.

I've never had opportunity to have such a meeting yet. :|

Thanks Paul, that's good food for thought (and hearing, too! :) )

regards,
Matt
 
Well, Bart just informed me that another other of my friend's stones was a LPB as well. I thought it was, in fact, I almost was certain of it (the bottom layer where the layers are beginning to fuse together). I honed the second razor on that, and the third was on a La Grosse Blanche.

I know Bart can, and I'm assuming others can too, attest to the benefit that new guys get from watching someone manage the slurry and going through a dilucot. They both seemed to really benefit from the experience, and it was a lot of fun for me. It's been a while since I sat and honed more than 1 or 2 razors at a time. It took longer to get started and lap my Shaptons than it did to hone all of those razors... So, not knowing the interest level of one of the guys in natural stones, I brought my Shaptons- they needed to be brought off the shelf anyway. After hearing a little about the cost, seeing me lap them all, and watching me do a dilucot in 10 minutes, he was pretty much convinced he wanted a coticule :lol:

What's interesting is that dilu-barbers hone worked pretty well (still awaiting the full shave, but I was stunned by the test patch), but no one wanted to grab a barbers hone.... they just kept reaching for the coticules that were there :rolleyes:

Matt, if you ever get a chance, I think you'll really enjoy a gathering of this sort :thumbup:
 
Great post, Paul. Shreveport? Hope the Proraso gets to the right place. It has been eight or nine days, so it should be there soon. YP, Denny
 
DJKELLY said:
Great post, Paul. Shreveport? Hope the Proraso gets to the right place. It has been eight or nine days, so it should be there soon. YP, Denny

My wife was grumbling about some packages waiting on me. so... :p

Thanks Denny!
 
No thanks yet, Paul. I hope it is OK. I had to make the box myself and didn't have but one chance with the limited cardboard on hand and forgot to make it a little bigger than four times around the bottle, so there is no overlap. Then, I thought the post office would have a little more packaging, but they said it was fine (lazy?) and sent it like it was. Thank me when it is on your face.

As for your thread, you coticule pusher, you--it would be great to have a little confab with trusted honers and various stones. I think one of my vintage, almost square hones might be a La Petit Blanche or similar layer. It is startingly abrasive with slurry but finishes on water to a great edge. Those garnets must leap up in slurry but be embedded in the stone otherwise. It has a lot of white streaks in the BBW when viewed from the side. Isn't that a trait of that layer?
D
 
Denny, I'm not 100% sure I know what you mean. I don't think I'd call it startling abrasive, but you can feel it. And, yes, they finish to a great edge, but that's true of all the coticules I've used.

BTW, I just got a text from the other buddy from last night's session, and he commented on how it didn't feel sharp but "worked like a dream" :lol: That never gets old to me
 
DJKELLY said:
It is startingly abrasive with slurry but finishes on water to a great edge. Those garnets must leap up in slurry but be embedded in the stone otherwise. It has a lot of white streaks in the BBW when viewed from the side. Isn't that a trait of that layer?
D

That comfirms on all accounts with La Veinette.
 
Bart said:
DJKELLY said:
It is startingly abrasive with slurry but finishes on water to a great edge. Those garnets must leap up in slurry but be embedded in the stone otherwise. It has a lot of white streaks in the BBW when viewed from the side. Isn't that a trait of that layer?
D

That comfirms on all accounts with La Veinette.
I get those two layers mixed up. I would really love to see that encyclopedia of layers. I know how you got so good, Bart, but wonder how Jared did it. Thanks, Denny
 
DJKELLY said:
I get those two layers mixed up. I would really love to see that encyclopedia of layers. I know how you got so good, Bart, but wonder how Jared did it. Thanks, Denny

I'm just weird. I'd like to say that it's because I hung out with geologists in college, though. :p
 
danjared said:
I'm just weird. I'd like to say that it's because I hung out with geologists in college, though. :p

I can attest that his entire college is kinda weird. :lol:
 
Denny, It's here :w00t:

Thanks!

So, as I mentioned in another thread, the 3rd guy at the hone-in called me today after shaving with that LPB honed razor I did for him looking for advice on which coticule to buy. It was really fun to do that last night, and the responses from my own shave on a TI that I honed, and those of the other two gents, was really fun today...

Good stuff :sleep:
 
Paul really is a master with a coticule and it was a real pleasure watching him at work. He was in a zone! I've been having good luck so far with unicot but after watching Paul I jumped in and started doing dilucot. I don't believe I ever would have picked it up so quickly without being able to watch someone in person. Bart's videos are an amazing resource and they really helped me to get going quickly with the unicot method but actually seeing someone who knows what they are doing in person is even better!

If anyone else new to coticules gets the opportunity to hang out with someone more experienced I highly recommend doing it. The coticule party was such a sight in my hotel room last night. We had coticules and razors spread all over the bed, both the wet bar sink and the bathroom sink were in play, there were strops attached to the door handle and there were three happy guys running all over the room with a stone in one hand and a razor in the other. It was complete madness and it was so much fun. I'll remember that evening for a long time.
 
richmondesi said:
So, I was forced to go totally by feel. I have talked a lot about honing by feel, but I've never been forced to go through a honing session without the aid (crutch :-/ ) of my trusty HHT.

Dilucot is the way to go for honing by feel. A thousand harrumphs to the people claiming that Synth honing is easier.

What state was the razor you honed on the barber stone in when you started? How long would you say it took?
 
Both the coticule (& the BBW) really speaks if you just take the time to really listen to it :thumbup:
It tells you everything you need to know, without any other tests IMO.

Sounds like you had a real cool time Paul!
 
SliceOfLife said:
Dilucot is the way to go for honing by feel. A thousand harrumphs to the people claiming that Synth honing is easier.

What state was the razor you honed on the barber stone in when you started? How long would you say it took?

The razor honed on the barber hone had a set bevel prior to restarting with it, and it took about as long as a standard dilucot would... maybe less. But, as you know, it's not a long arduous task (less than 10 minutes)...

The shave last night was great. I used the razor honed with the Barber Hone on one side WTG, and a TI that had been honed but someone else but was not performing well on the other (I suspected it needed tape due to the width of the bevel although I didn't have a caliper on me to measure it). I took the TI, added 2 layers of tape, and did a modified Unicot on Whitebar's La Grosse Blanche bout (beautiful stone and very nice to hone on).

The TI was the expected keen mellow edge... the Barber Hone was quite nice, very keen, but not quite as smooth. So, I decided to finish out the rest of the shave with the TI, and it was delightful. The razor was very sweet (I'm thinking about offering the owner a trade of some sort for it since he wasn't too fond of it originally :p ), and the edge was mellow, as you'd expect off LGB.
 
richmondesi said:
However, I went ahead and worked through the process paying special attention to the feel. It was fun to really dial in on the feel, and listening to the stone. (...)

Anyway, what I learned is the lessons I "earned" in the early days (before the guidelines of stroke count, dilution, etc.) about understanding the slurry and "listening" to the stone is the most valuable experience in my honing journey. I learned to feel where I was in the process, and from that early experience, I've become a much better honer.

After a yesterday's shave I had a feeling that the razor is losing its maximum efficiency, so I did a touch up with just water on my La Grosse Blanche. I could definitely feel the difference in tactile feedback, initially it felt as if I were dragging a sharp edge across the hone surface, and after a while feedback changed to more butter-like sensation, more gliding and no abrasive feel at all. I was rinsing it a few times to make sure it's not caused by any slurry release (although that would rather make it feel the opposite), or steel build up. HHT off the hone was 3 bordering on 4, and after stropping hair was popping with just the slightest jerk upon being cut (not 100% uniform, though, I have to admit). I think I'm getting a little bit more hang of the coticule honing nuances. :thumbup:

regards,
Matt
 
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