I'm not necessarily disagreeing with anyone.
Many ways leading to Rome, as they say. If someone wants to bury a black cat in between honing strokes, you might get in trouble with the
CFA, but not with me.
But I do admit that often with some
honing recipes, the logic escapes me. Not that I have anything against honing recipes. I believe that they can be very helpful, certainly for the first learning steps in a new skill.
The method suggested here, starts with a perfect bevel off a 1K hone. I realize that many think something like this: "1K is 8times less than 8K, hence it must be 8 times duller. If 8K is barely sufficient to shave, than 1K must be horrendous". Right?...
Wrong.
Obviously it depends on the particular 1000 grit stone that was used, but if the bevel setting was ended with light pressured X-stroke, such an edge can be stropped on leather and shave. It won't be the smoothest shave ever, but the result is less worse than generally anticipated. All that fancy finishing on higher grit hones or special types of rock, it makes not the big leap in performance, albeit anyone will clearly appreciate the extra comfort from a better finished edge.
If you put such a 1K edge on a Coticule, whatever work you do, will serve you some of the extra comfort within reach of the Coticule,
as long as you don't use thick slurry. Thick slurry makes a 1K synthetic edge less keen than it already was. Anyone can who owns both a 1K and a Coticule can do the test at home.
If I wanted to improve a 1K edge by using a Coticule, I would only use water, and in some cases a very thin, watery slurry, created by 2 or 3 swipes of the slurry stone.
But I don't use a 1K hone for bevel correction.
There was this odd situation a couple of years ago. On European based shaving forums, most razor sharpening talk was about the use of pastes. The traditional way was to get the razor keen and smooth with a pasted strop. The edge was maintained every couple of shaves on the same pasted strop. Once a year or so, if the arc in the bevel became too pronounced for the pasted touch-ups, the bevel had to be straightened out. That was the traditional task for a Coticule. I know several man who've been shaving for decades with a straight razor. All they ever use Dovo red paste, and very rarely when that no longer works, a Coticule.
On the other hand, on the US-based forums, Coticules were solely used as a "finishing" hone. Water only, to improve the comfort from the edge as left by the indigenous Norton 8K.
So we had one continent using Coticules for finishing and the other using it for bevel work. All I ever did, was to combine these 2 uses. I found it easier said than done. The problem is that the Coticule only works fast enough for bevel work, if used with slurry, which puts a limit on the maximum keenness that can be reached. This leaves the edge not yet keen enough for finishing. The Unicot and Dilucot recipes only serve to bridge that gap. One uses tape to "cheat" its way out, the other relies on dilution of the slurry. Both are no big deal, no special voodoo, no secret code. It's just like riding a bike, specially Dilucot. It takes some time to become second nature.
But if you're going to finish an already keen enough bevel, there is not much gap to bridge. Do all the efforts described in the first post
on pure water (rinse when the water becomes cloudy), and I bet you will get an even better result.
One other thing. I think that during the Dilucot procedure, if you wait until the slurry "feels different" before adding the next drop of water, you are likely waiting too long. The only thing I notice during dilution is that the Coticule gradually evolves from being at its fastest to its slowest. Often you can also here the "abrasive" sound becoming dimmer. I aim for this process to be as gradual as possible, in it's totality.
I definitely don't want to dismiss everything that's been said here. Circles are great. So is localized attention to spots that stayed behind. Extra work on other hones to up the keenness, if that makes it easier. Additional pastes. All viable ways to get a good edge. :thumbup:
I think what sets apart those who stick solely with a Coticule and those who don't, is that a seasoned
Coticulier has the confidence that he'll get there eventually. It often takes me 5 minutes to correct the bevel on slurry and take the edge through the dilution stage. Next another 15 minutes of finishing attempts, before I finally arrive at the sweet spot. Considering that the seasoned Coticulier withing me can do a lot of laps in little time, I fear that a novice Coticule user probably gives up in despair long before his edge arrives. I would like to encourage anyone with "Coticule problems" to spend more time finishing instead of more time diluting.
Kind regards,
Bart.