So was hoping I could show the variety of color variances in my natural combo Coticules BBW side. I see a huge variance from an almost blue to purple to metallic purple, some with spots some not and then there is the newest one I just got in the middle that is almost black. Unfortunately I don’t think the picture shows it as well as what I see with my eyes. It also now makes me curious if some are better than others for honing on. I would be trying knives probably though.
BBW variety
- Thread starter rideon66
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My best knife bbw (maybe Rouge) is wine colored. I'm glad you posted this because I had a similar question. I bought this coticule, it's old and very dense and very hard. The yellow side ate up 8Cr13MoV and produced black swarf as fast as my other similar coticule and my Les lat. It seems very fine and it polished and flattened the bevel quickly. I actually bought the stone because of the pink lines in the bbw and the patterning on it. I was hoping it'd be like my stone colored one but I don't think so. I was curious about the vein because I want to be able to differentiate between bbw types, because they aren't all equal by any means. When you find a good one though, it's really good, and is like some more of them. Especially since they're cheaper. 
Interesting thread, and something I've thought about a bit in the past obviously! I don't have all my Cotis / BBW here atm, but I've got a few so will run a couple of tests later and report back...
(My hunch is that my favourite BBWs back in Aus are ones with fewer or no spots n stripes).
(My hunch is that my favourite BBWs back in Aus are ones with fewer or no spots n stripes).
Oh btw Tom - I have a stone that looks very similar to your new one, cut with a thick layer of very dark BBW without particularly noticeable patterning. Though mine doesn't have the manganese stripes on the coti side. I'll see if I can dig out any pics.
Both BBW and Coti side of mine are comparatively coarse and fast - it's a superb knife stone, but not a razor finisher I think. (Though frankly using Cotis or BBW on razors is a shameful waste
).
Both BBW and Coti side of mine are comparatively coarse and fast - it's a superb knife stone, but not a razor finisher I think. (Though frankly using Cotis or BBW on razors is a shameful waste
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- #5
Oh btw Tom - I have a stone that looks very similar to your new one, cut with a thick layer of very dark BBW without particularly noticeable patterning. Though mine doesn't have the manganese stripes on the coti side. I'll see if I can dig out any pics.
Both BBW and Coti side of mine are comparatively coarse and fast - it's a superb knife stone, but not a razor finisher I think. (Though frankly using Cotis or BBW on razors is a shameful waste
Oli this new one is a real hard old stone similar to the old rock stones. Fast yet hard and fine and the coti side is a lovely razor stone. It might be good for knives, but I would probably try the BBW side for that. The BBW side does some very faint marks in the darkness.
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- #6
I don't have this stone anymore, but this was a very different type of BBW on this old one I had.
This is interesting. I’ve never been able to make any good associations with BBW color and quality. I’m not one of those to use BBW with razors, but I do like to use with tools/knives and pressure. The best BBW I ever had that could finish a razor……. someone later suggested it was actually a La Lorraine LOL
Interesting you say that. I much prefer crisper edges from other stones, but have to admit an odd match of coticule and smooth razors (even when seemingly not so sharp). I like using some coticules with carbon steel knives…..but don’t find them to be the greatest knife stone options personally. What makes you prefer coticule for non-razor honing over razor?
Though frankly using Cotis or BBW on razors is a shameful waste
Interesting you say that. I much prefer crisper edges from other stones, but have to admit an odd match of coticule and smooth razors (even when seemingly not so sharp). I like using some coticules with carbon steel knives…..but don’t find them to be the greatest knife stone options personally. What makes you prefer coticule for non-razor honing over razor?
I have several that look just like that. I don’t mess around with dirty ole BBW, but the yellow side on those have all been really good.
If you can find a coarser one that's fast it will eat the hardest of steels with ease. When I got steel tools that don't want to cut quickly on a washita I'll through the on my Les lat and can thin edge/ widen the bevel on no time. As long as you aren't cutting diamonds those garnets are had to beat on tough steel.
Ah yeah I remember you saying that on another thread now. The coti on mine isn't desperately hard, kinda average. It's also around the same grit level as the BBW, and both are very quick and quite coarse. The BBW polishes nicely, but with some scratch pattern on cladding unless you really work the mud down.
Found some pics of some of mine in Aus, the nearest stone is a Goldfisch Wetzstein, which most people think is from a Lorraine layer:
This is the Goldfisch on the left, with the very dark non-patterned BBW on the right:
Stone on the left here is the one next to the Goldfisch; good polishing stone, and cuts nicely, coticule is fine, hard and slow. Stone on the right is the large one furthest away; both BBW and coticule on this are fine, soft-ish, and insanely fast. This stone polishes incredibly and the coticule awesome - the whole thing is just about the most extraordinary whetstone I own, it's also huge, and I think La Veinette:
And a special bonus of the weirdest thing I've seen on a BBW... this coti is glued onto the BBW, which appears to have a peculiar green-grey layer at the surface. I couldn't tell if that was a natural part of the BBW, or another thing that'd been glued on. It was coarse, gritty, and not very good for sharpening from memory.
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- #12
David, I think that was an old LPB and those are really good. It was my first razor stone and what I learned on. I even cut bevels on it doing a true one stone hone back in the day.
So the reason I like them for knives is because they're very quick, and I find a fairly direct correlation between how much teeth and grip you can get on a knife edge and how fast a stone is. If you don't overwork it a good coticule knife edge will have far more bite and aggression than a jnat edge at a similar level for instance (ime). NB - for knives I do almost always work off an atoma slurry to get the garnets all broken up and pointy.
TBF I do also get the attraction of cotis on razors, but it's only the hard, fine ones that I don't like so much that I use for them. The others are too good to waste
.Here's a vid I made recently using the massive stone in the post above to show just how fast coticules can be. Here I didn't use slurry; just a spray of water at the beginning, and you can see the stone swarfing up almost as soon as the knife touches it. It's so quick that actually for most of this video I'm deburring, as it just keeps forming new ones at all but the lightest of pressure. As well as being smoking fast this stone is also incredibly fine, it would happily be in razor territory I imagine, but I'm saving it for best:
And (seeing as this is a BBW thread) a coupla vids showing polish from the BBW side of the same stone:
BOOOO DAVID! BOOOOOOOO!!!
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Little look then at some of the ones I have here. I also found a small gyuto blade that I'd zero bevelled so that's gonna be good to look at polish / scratch pattern. Though tbh - these are all good polishes, and you probably won't see much difference in the pics. Worked from an atoma slurry, in the order: 2, 3, 1, 4, but I'm going talk about them in the order they appear below.
The first stone is spotty and purple with blue tints in the sun. This is what I'd call quite a good standard BBW; around average speed and grit, and maybe slightly on the softer side. It's a very easy stone to use, and gives a dark, hazy, scratch free jigane, and a nice but slightly cloudy hagane.
The second stone is an extrmely thin bit of a gradual transition from the yellow, and it's a grey colour, this is probably as much coti as it is BBW and it behaves like it. It's fast and produces a very bright hagane that would get to mirrorish, but a few stray scratches on the jigane.
The third stone has no spots, and fine silk-like appearance, it's quite dark and more blue than the others with lots of fine shimmery twinkles in the sun. This stone is hard fine and slow (as is the coti side), it produces a very bright hagane, but with pressure can have a tendency to burnish the jigane if you're not careful, which is pretty much what you'd expect.
The last stone is one I am now nigh on certain is a piece of La Lorriane, whereas the other three are natural combis. It has some very fine darker speckles, but they're not red like in BBW. This feels extremely fine under a blade, with lovely silken feedback, a little finer than stone above and certainly softer, and it's quite fast. This is quite easy to use for sharpening because of the speed, but the most difficult for polishing. It gives a very bright hagane though needs to be used at very low pressure to avoid fine visible scratches on the jigane. More time and pressure would pull the jigane toward a semi-mirror shine and probably get rid of these. If you were a real polishing whizz I think this stone has the potential to be extraordinary.
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All of those stones are great tbh, because they're Belgian Blue Whetstone. And they way they sharpen and bevel polish san mai would put many jnats to shame.
The first stone is spotty and purple with blue tints in the sun. This is what I'd call quite a good standard BBW; around average speed and grit, and maybe slightly on the softer side. It's a very easy stone to use, and gives a dark, hazy, scratch free jigane, and a nice but slightly cloudy hagane.
The second stone is an extrmely thin bit of a gradual transition from the yellow, and it's a grey colour, this is probably as much coti as it is BBW and it behaves like it. It's fast and produces a very bright hagane that would get to mirrorish, but a few stray scratches on the jigane.
The third stone has no spots, and fine silk-like appearance, it's quite dark and more blue than the others with lots of fine shimmery twinkles in the sun. This stone is hard fine and slow (as is the coti side), it produces a very bright hagane, but with pressure can have a tendency to burnish the jigane if you're not careful, which is pretty much what you'd expect.
The last stone is one I am now nigh on certain is a piece of La Lorriane, whereas the other three are natural combis. It has some very fine darker speckles, but they're not red like in BBW. This feels extremely fine under a blade, with lovely silken feedback, a little finer than stone above and certainly softer, and it's quite fast. This is quite easy to use for sharpening because of the speed, but the most difficult for polishing. It gives a very bright hagane though needs to be used at very low pressure to avoid fine visible scratches on the jigane. More time and pressure would pull the jigane toward a semi-mirror shine and probably get rid of these. If you were a real polishing whizz I think this stone has the potential to be extraordinary.
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All of those stones are great tbh, because they're Belgian Blue Whetstone. And they way they sharpen and bevel polish san mai would put many jnats to shame.
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Alright. I’m going home for lunch today to rub something on a BBW and it had better be good.
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- #16
So does anyone know if the La Lorraine/Rouge du Salm layer was ever actually naturally connected to normal coticules as in a natural combo or was it a distinct layer that did not contact that normal coticule? I feel like many just assumed by looks that certain similar BBW layers attached on natural combo coticules were La Lorraine/Rouge du Salm. I don't know though.
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- #17
I am not sure I want to know.
Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life!
I sharpened a little blue paper petty on the back of my 8x3 LPB. A Deana Carter song comes to mind…
Did I shave my legs for this?
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My impression is not, though likewise I don’t know for certain. I also get the impression that there are some things about LaL and RdS that actually nobody knows.
Where did the name ‘La Lorraine’ come from? Are the stones with the La Lorraine labels actually the same as RdS? They look purple whereas a lot of RdS seems to be red. Lorraine is region in France, the name is never really associated with Belgium. Google tells me there is a Belgian Lorraine but the term is only used to differentiate it from the ‘geologically distinct’ Ardennes...
So many questions!
