Introduction to Honing

[wta123]

Hello everybody,

Just making this thread to sort of document my first attempts at honing; for myself, and others. I attached the pictures of my coticule which I just received in the mail, maybe some of you will know more about it from the pictures. The slurry stone was bought separately, for reference. For bevel setting, I purchased an king ice bear 1000 grit hone, as I feel as this would be an easier addition than trying to set the bevel on the coticule. I have been doing quite a bit of research on the coticule belgian.de website to help familiarize myself with the basic methods of honing on a coticule, even though I am sure it is not as easy as it looks.
My only issue this far concerns the bevel setting. On the coticule website, many people mention honing with tape on the spine to get a certain angle for setting a correct bevel. On this site, and many others, I have seen no tape used in this manner on the bevel setting. Is this necessary? Any clarification would be greatly appreciated.

 

[natchez]

Personally, I do not tape the spine for my razors. On coticule.be the unicot method has you tape the spine towards the end of the honing process. I just use the dilucot method and have not had a problem. I usually set my bevels on a Norton 1K or Naniwa SS 1K and then go to the coticule. You have a nice looking stone. Enjoy it!

 

[Munxcub]

Your coti looks sort of like my Dressante au bleu, should work just fine.

 

[Chimensch]

I use my coticule as part of a progression: BBW with slurry, coticule with water and then a Jnat with water for keeness because I don't get a sharp enough edge off the coticule with water. This is the problem that Bart addresses by putting tape on the spine to create a secondary bevel towards the end.

It so happened that I had an opportunity to teach someone who had received a straight as a Christmas gift how to hone his razor. I decided to teach him the unicot method because it only needs one stone, is foolproof and you don't need to know how to do the HHT. Of course, I had to learn it first in order to teach it. I honed two of my Le Grelots using the unicot method and got great results, as good as I get off my Jnat.

I will continue to use my progression because I have the stones and I find putting the tape on the spine to be a little bit of a nuisance but for a new shaver the unicot method is definitely the way to go.

As for why people put tape on the spine when setting the bevel, this is to protect the spine for aesthetic reasons and I never do that.

 

[danjared]

I use my coticule as part of a progression: BBW with slurry, coticule with water and then a Jnat with water for keeness because I don't get a sharp enough edge off the coticule with water. This is the problem that Bart addresses by putting tape on the spine to create a secondary bevel towards the end.

It so happened that I had an opportunity to teach someone who had received a straight as a Christmas gift how to hone his razor. I decided to teach him the unicot method because it only needs one stone, is foolproof and you don't need to know how to do the HHT. Of course, I had to learn it first in order to teach it. I honed two of my Le Grelots using the unicot method and got great results, as good as I get off my Jnat.

I will continue to use my progression because I have the stones and I find putting the tape on the spine to be a little bit of a nuisance but for a new shaver the unicot method is definitely the way to go.

As for why people put tape on the spine when setting the bevel, this is to protect the spine for aesthetic reasons and I never do that.

Right, unicot is partly meant as a (mostly) foolproof way of reaching the keenness limit of your coticule when you haven't yet figured out how to get the most out of dilucot on your stone.

Edit: Chimensch: Have you tried dilutions on the BBW? Do you ever do dilucot on the coticule?

 

[wta123]

Thanks for the clear-up everyone, it is definitely helping to raise my confidence level a bit.

The tape question came from searching some of the topics on the Belgian coticule website. I had seen remarks referring to an angle calculator that would sum up the needed levels of tape to deliver the most beneficial angle to the razor's edge. For now, I will concentrate on setting the bevel on the 1k king ice bear and then moving onto the the coticule. I still need a finishing stone (I think), so I will most likely just go back to woodcraft and get a chinese 12k for the time being, as long as everything else falls in line. I forgot to mention I am also trying to send out one of my razors for honing, so I can actually get a feel for what a properly honed razor feels like. I have attached a picture of it (clauss). You can also see the razor I was going to attempt to hone, as soon I repin some scales to it (a shumante ben hur). Thanks again!

 

[Munxcub]

Your coti will put as good or better finish on the edge than a C12k. (and I'm voting for much better actually...) So I would hold off on that until you find out what your coti can do.

 

[wta123]

Your coti will put as good or better finish on the edge than a C12k. (and I'm voting for much better actually...) So I would hold off on that until you find out what your coti can do.

I had read that. Would the finish stage be on a basically completely diluted or dry coticule?

 

[Munxcub]

just water to finish. I do my last finishing under running water actually.

Basically heavy slurry is more or less a low grit course stone, as it dilutes it gets finer, finally being the finest it can be on water (or slightly finer yet with lather). That's what allows one stone to do it all.

 

[Chimensch]

Chimensch: Have you tried dilutions on the BBW? Do you ever do dilucot on the coticule?

I have never have done dilutions on the BBW or tried the dilucot method for a couple of reasons. First of all because I'm the "fool" they talk about in "foolproof". I like methods that are absolutely repeatable and don't have a lot variables. The dilutions require too much attention and I prefer something I can do in my sleep at 5:00 am when I am usually honing my razor before I shave with it. The second reason is that the dilucot method requires performing the HHT and I've never, ever, ever got it to work despite the fact that I get really great shaves.

 

[kg4ghn]

I have a coticule and a chinese 12k and I prefer the coticule edge. The chinese 12k is not bad, but if you already have the coticule I would at least try it out. Lots of people are happy with the edge off of a coticule.

 

[danjared]

I have never have done dilutions on the BBW or tried the dilucot method for a couple of reasons. First of all because I'm the "fool" they talk about in "foolproof". I like methods that are absolutely repeatable and don't have a lot variables. The dilutions require too much attention and I prefer something I can do in my sleep at 5:00 am when I am usually honing my razor before I shave with it. The second reason is that the dilucot method requires performing the HHT and I've never, ever, ever got it to work despite the fact that I get really great shaves.

You might want to consider giving dilublue a try (and it was finally just "officially" announced). It seems like it's a little more foolproof. There are fewer dilutions involved (although not necessarily fewer strokes if you're very good at using your coticule), and BBW exhibit less slurry dulling than coticules (but coticules are faster, especially on water).

It does help immensely with dilucot to do some (rather annoying) calibration of your HHT results. I can understand having trouble with it. What's really useful is washing the hair off with water, checking for violining then going on and trying to get better results during the finishing stage (with the fail meaning I just do more strokes on water). That's my cheap cheat for getting somewhat useful results with the HHT. I think the washing hair off part helps a lot with consistency. The oils on the hair can really throw things off.

Anyway, I'm done with hijacking this thread (for now).