After a Coticule?

[lightfoot]

I too am trying to gain some mastery on my La Grise. I used an oil progression from thin to thick and while the edge is the sharpest I've came up with on a coti it still feels a bit harsh after a couple of shaves. I may try and tone it down a bit on some lather or perhaps a few laps on my carbo 118A. I'd also like to try my hand at posting A few honing videos sometime soon as well for those interested.

 

[mikael]

Great thread. Just finished it. Very entertaining and informative.

 

[seattleshaver]

Gamma, just curious to get your take (if you read this). Given your experience couldn't you get a sharp, smooth and comfortable edge using almost anything?

Or to put it another way, if you set up the bevel properly couldn't you get a very sharp and comfortable edge using a Norton 4k/8k with a Cnat and pasted strop? I'm talking about if that was your interest and your goal and not talking about what some people do incorrectly at each stage along the way.

 

[Gamma]

I just stumbled in here accidentally - if you use @Gamma there's a better chance of me finding a mention.
In your scenario, the Cnat is, to me, eqivalent to the 8k Norton so I'd toss it for being both ugly and redundant.

A pasted strop pretty much eliminates just about everything done before it, so if the blade was honed to the right 'level' and the correct abrasive was on the strop and it was used correctly - you might be able to get an edge you want to shave with every day.
Or not - might does not mean will.

Could it happen? I suppose that anything can happen. Only a fool would say otherwise.

The main issue I have with scenarios like this is the linearity - as if honing/shaving/etc is a simple course that can be plotted with a line on graph paper. While it may be that for some people, it's not that at all for me. In part, honing is all about preferences coming to a final end result and for me to be happy with that result I need to be happy with all the parts along the way. I do this for fun - I need to be 100% happy at every point of the process. But that's just me - and how I see all of this. Some people are less - uhm.. fussy and they are more than happy with hitting the pasted strop 20-30x once a month. Horses for courses.

Truthfully - I despise the Norton 4k/8k. I won't get into why right now, but I really do dislike it a lot.
So - no matter what - I would never enjoy any edge that came off of it.

I experiment with abrasive powders and pastes all the time - and I do mean 'all the time' - and I've yet to make an edge that I felt compelled to utter, this right here is the Neo of Edges'...
No, that hasn't happened yet, prob never will. I suppose that might happen, but I'm not really feelin' it.

On the other hand, I do get that 'Neo' edge off Jnats all of the time. So, there's that.....

 

[seattleshaver]

I just stumbled in here accidentally - if you use @Gamma there's a better chance of me finding a mention.
In your scenario, the Cnat is, to me, eqivalent to the 8k Norton so I'd toss it for being both ugly and redundant.

A pasted strop pretty much eliminates just about everything done before it, so if the blade was honed to the right 'level' and the correct abrasive was on the strop and it was used correctly - you might be able to get an edge you want to shave with every day.
Or not - might does not mean will.

Could it happen? I suppose that anything can happen. Only a fool would say otherwise.

The main issue I have with scenarios like this is the linearity - as if honing/shaving/etc is a simple course that can be plotted with a line on graph paper. While it may be that for some people, it's not that at all for me. In part, honing is all about preferences coming to a final end result and for me to be happy with that result I need to be happy with all the parts along the way. I do this for fun - I need to be 100% happy at every point of the process. But that's just me - and how I see all of this. Some people are less - uhm.. fussy and they are more than happy with hitting the pasted strop 20-30x once a month. Horses for courses.

Truthfully - I despise the Norton 4k/8k. I won't get into why right now, but I really do dislike it a lot.
So - no matter what - I would never enjoy any edge that came off of it.

I experiment with abrasive powders and pastes all the time - and I do mean 'all the time' - and I've yet to make an edge that I felt compelled to utter 'Holy S***, this **** right here is the Neo of Edges'...
No, that hasn't happened yet, prob never will. I suppose that might happen, but I'm not really feelin' it.

On the other hand, I do get that 'Neo' edge off Jnats all of the time. So, there's that.....

If a double blind test were ever set up in this forum for the testing of edges I'd like to see that you were one of the test takers.

When you pick the blade that was honed on a Norton 4k/8k, Jnat and lightly polished with ferric oxide I hope you can handle the "shame" haha

I suppose that wouldn't happen but...maybe!

I don't have Jnat's or coticules for comparison but lately now that I've got a set group of 7 razors that I use and now that I'm not initially fooling around with the honing and am just maintaining them (all ones that I've honed however) I'm getting some really sharp and really smooth blades. Where sharpness isn't an issue and yet where I'm not getting razor rash either.

It's all done for me on 4k/8k Japanese waterstone slip stones and the Cnat with crox and ferric oxide. I've thought about trying Jnats or coticules and then I think...to what end? I enjoy honing but what I really enjoy is shaving and being able to (largely) ignore the honing/maintenance component. I'm a bit of a minimalist in that regard so getting started with Jnats and/or coticules would need to offer something more than I'm already getting.

 

[Gamma]

You and I are not thinkiing along the same plane. But that's a topic for another day.

I'm from the 'don't fix it if it ain't broke' school - if you like what you're getting from what you have - then there's no reason to be thinking about greener grass on the other side of the fence.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I think most of our community aims to help other members, rather than profit from them... but there are always going to be exceptions to the rule that new users should be aware of. Some forums banned people who dared to argue against the whole "Start with a Norton set and learn to shave off the 8k... never suggest anything else to a beginner as it will just confuse them"... forums with admins who (coincidentally I'm sure) sold Norton honing kits or people who dared to suggest that Gold Dollars shaved as well as Dovo's, (guess which razor the admins sold).

I've shaved off 8k... a lot. I've shaved off 1k. I'd love to laugh in the face of someone who tells me I don't know how to properly use an 8k hone. Shaving off 8k is ridiculous. And I'm convinced the SOLE reason it came into shaving community discussion as even "ACCEPTABLE", much less ideal (which I've seen argued PLENTY), is because of the circumstances where some of the most amplified voices in the discussion as the online communities were fledgling (ten to fifteen years ago) sold Nortons. I have zero doubts that is the only reason. But it became an expected piece of advice for being repeated so much by people who new users were taught to trust, and then by the people who had trusted them, and on and on... until now probably still the majority of people, even ones who HAVE DONE IT, and KNOW FOR A FACT an 8k Norton shave is crap will pull their punches and convince themselves that it's an "important learning step" or some other nonsense, rather than reevaluate and admit that they were played for suckers years, even a decade ago, by people trying to sell them a poor choice of a hone for what we do; because it was what was they had the easiest time sourcing and selling back then.

Now, you may like the norton 4k/8k. I didn't care for it; but I didn't have one break on me (I know people who did), I didn't have to struggle to keep one flat and find it much more difficult than competing hones (I know people who did), I didn't have any serious problems during the very short period of time I owned mine. It was an alright hone that was outclassed by very slightly more expensive ones. But it is not, and never has been, and never will be an acceptable razor finisher for anyone with even the slightest amount of discriminating taste with regards to their shave quality. And forcing yourself to suffer even one uncomfortable, awful shave; much less weeks or months or longer until you've learned some mystical lesson that only suffering can teach is silly; all because someone probably made five bucks every time some new shaver bought a Norton kit from him... and that's evidently more than your comfort and enjoyment of our mutual interest of straight shaving was worth to them.

 

[Kaas]

The result of a first time coti hone:

The blade felt exceptionally smooth, similar to a Jnat shave.

Unfortunately after three passes, WTG, ATX, XTG, I had quite a bit of stubble remaining and had to do two more passes with a blade honed on synthetics.

I'm not giving up. I learned something too. When I said earlier that the blade looked different in the scope than a synthetic or film hone, I meant it didn't look as sharp .... it didn't have that gleam. The edge was straight but simply not sharp enough. I'll pay more attention to what I see the next time.

A good coticule can do better than that.

 

[A Cut Above]

I go from my coti to my Escher. Then strop. Gives a very sharp smooth shaving edge.

 

[A Cut Above]

After honing on my coticule, took a problem razor to my Ark Black dry 100 laps with the spine first, then 40 laps on my Tony Miller linen then 60 laps on my strop. The edge was amazing. Extremely sharp, under a microscope the edge was really polished with a very fine edge. Lastly, the shave was like a hot knife through butter. I read about this finishing and I was really glad I tried it. By the way, I have 7 shaves on the razor with no loss in performance. Just strop and shave.

 

[A Cut Above]

I used my LV coticule then went to chromium oxide paste on my SRD modular leather. I have two pads, one with .5 another with .25. I then strop on my leather. Shaves like a smooth coticule edge just a finer sharper edge then without the chromium oxide.