Someone with a pot of crox a bbw and a good scope should try this someday on a full hollow and image it.
BBW as a one-hone?
- Thread starter SpikedLemon
- Start date
Some body used BBW quite a bit. There's a fair amount of vintage Coti's around with heavily dished BBW. Not my first choice. I did read a thread somewhere about picking up some keenness using a BBW. Until I can do it, it remains unproven.
I hope you peel it before applying the chrox!
May have been when the world was a much bigger place and replacing things was a pita ppl may have resorted to the blue to extend the life of the yellow
I've managed to get decent, serviceable edges off of the BBW in the past, but nothing that blew me away. I am not talking about playing in the mud to set the bevel, but more like mild mid-range slurry, finished on water. The stone is painfully slow.. I can only assume that some people used a lot of pressure, as a consequence of becoming extremely bored.
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I use BBW a lot.
It can be done, quite easily actually with the right(super fine) bbw base and a soft and fairly fine bbw slurry stone. I finish razors on bbws regularly and with the right ones(I've only ever seen two) they provide an amazing edge kinds like a cross between a fine coticule and a soft thuringian as fast as edge feel goes. If you've got a light touch you can make coarser ones behave similarly.
The BBW of the natural coticule combination has a chance to be a fine BBW.
I finish on a Yellowlake slate stone. People say it’s a transition stone BEFORE the finishing stone. That may be- for some. I don’t suck at honing, and the Yellowlake does me just right. However- that stone serves as my touch up stone. I’m actually curious about ILR’s- how they compare. Some day I’ll have a Dan’s surgical black Ark for a finisher- I’m sure BBW’s are great- I’m one of those type I guess, that can’t be bothered to make a slurry.
Those really old coticules usually have good bbws that are hard and glassy. Those are the best ones. My yellow lake can absolutely finish a razor, and on plain water at that. I've yet to put oil to it, and i like oil.
I have a la grise BBW shaped to a 1.7m curve, and I shaped the BBW on an old vein coticule to a 5m shape, as part of a BBW/coticule progression.
I don't use either stone as a finisher, though, only as a bevel set and mid-range stone. Convexing it definitely makes it a "faster" stone in use. I don't use slurry stones on either.
The few times I have used BBW as a finish stone, I've gotten what someone called "crispy edges," earlier in the thread, and that's as good a description as any. I'm not a fan of a pure BBW edge. They shaved well enough, but didn't ever feel comfortable on the face, for me. Perhaps they would have, if I'd used slurry.
Really hombre? Sounds like the opposite of what I like in Belgian Blue.
But if that's your bag - try typing 'find local glazier' into Google, and thank me later...
For razors they are the best ones. I've got an old one that's huge and it leaves a toothy edge on bbw side. I don't use it for razors at all but it's awesome on knives. Id assume most here are wanting to learn about razors, but I'm down to talk knives all day long. I'm waiting on a chef to drop off some knives in the next couple days and I'm going to try to convince her to let me finish them on that weird new Tam I got. I don't know if I can think of a stone that I've got that would put a better edge for a commercial kitchen knife than that.Really hombre? Sounds like the opposite of what I like in Belgian Blue.
But if that's your bag - try typing 'find local glazier' into Google, and thank me later...
Bigger kitchen knife natural combo mentioned earlier. 
This one feels glassy but finishes extremely keen, will extremely tiny teeth, tiny enough to shave with. It's great shave. 
Yellow lakes are weird. They're fine enough I definitely wouldn't call them a "transition stone" (I use the term "prefinisher"). But they are quite mediocre with most razors... but one in every few I use them with I get a real nice edge... Almost Thuri quality. My suspicion is that they are a little damaging to the edge/overly slow and certain steel compositions/profiles hold up better and their fineness really shows... but the majority of razors they tend to be a mediocre finisher with... Honestly in my book THEY should be the "Only for Good Razors" labeled stones... not those french slates (Which I've yet to find a razor they really shine with).
Problem is the number of razors they really shine with is small enough (10-25% of what I've tried)... I basically don't bother using them anymore... I keep one boxed one on my shelf as a nice little collector stone.
However If you're looking for a cheap setup with a big finisher and have a razor that they work well with; they may be the cheapest option (They commonly go for well under $50 for 8x2" stones... I think I averaged $20-30 for the ones I've bought).
BBW's? I've never had one that finished Anywhere near a yellow Coticule (If I remove the 1-2% of freakishly coarse coticules I've owned)... EXCEPT for Lorraine... which finished like an average yellow coticule... but was fairly slow.
And I went through a kick where I was testing every BBW I owned... mostly Nat Combo stones, some lone BBW/vintage combo stones where the BBW was clearly the most/more used side of the stone. I've probably tested more BBW than most honers will ever touch. 30-50 or so.
I did just pick up a vintage 8" coti where the coti is barely scratched and the BBW is dished almost through.
Problem is the number of razors they really shine with is small enough (10-25% of what I've tried)... I basically don't bother using them anymore... I keep one boxed one on my shelf as a nice little collector stone.
However If you're looking for a cheap setup with a big finisher and have a razor that they work well with; they may be the cheapest option (They commonly go for well under $50 for 8x2" stones... I think I averaged $20-30 for the ones I've bought).
BBW's? I've never had one that finished Anywhere near a yellow Coticule (If I remove the 1-2% of freakishly coarse coticules I've owned)... EXCEPT for Lorraine... which finished like an average yellow coticule... but was fairly slow.
And I went through a kick where I was testing every BBW I owned... mostly Nat Combo stones, some lone BBW/vintage combo stones where the BBW was clearly the most/more used side of the stone. I've probably tested more BBW than most honers will ever touch. 30-50 or so.
I did just pick up a vintage 8" coti where the coti is barely scratched and the BBW is dished almost through.
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I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hard bbw. Some are faster than others but as far as hardness goes they are all really close to the same from my experience.
I've got one that feels like glass that rubbing a hard ark on won't pull a slurry. The coticule side is also the hardest coticule I've seen. Both sides feel like the hybrid side of my Les lat. I've got one thats close(ish) but it will slurry with pressure. This is the one that feels like glass.
