La Petite Blanche

[BBS Kirk]

Well, back on the old Coticule forum, they found the BBW to pretty much have the same finishing capabilities as the Coticule. If not even more skin friendly.

In a blind side by side study of Coticule lovers, you know what stone was preferred between a BBW or Coticule?
Take a look: BBW Study

Also take a look: How does a Belgian Blue Whetstone compare to a Coticule? (a story about garnets)

I highly disagree about the usefulness of the BBW side on razors, the BBW side has a higher max keenness than a Coticule and is extremely useful.
People don't realize the similarities between a BBW and Coti is much greater than the difference.
There are differences, but both are extremely useful and good stones.
For my knives? I also love a BBW, always keener than a Coticule edge.
Easiest to get a smooth edge from? IME a Coticule
My best, smoothest and keenest edge ever? Came from a BBW from a natural combination stone, but I found it much harder to accomplish.

To each their own, but I LOVE my BBW as an in between before finishing on a Coticule on plain water.
It refines my edge in a more efficient and more advanced way than my Coticules.

But everybody does how they prefer. I find mine very useful and found their place in my honing routine.
YMMV.

Great to hear. I’ll experiment with my BBW.

 

[Basil]

I was part of the coti.be forum. Most of us tried out the experiment and agreed that you can do it, but it’s not as easy to get a shave ready razor. You can try it but I was never impressed with my results.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Likewise. After that test I tested maybe 30-50 bbws, most vintage natural combos. None were anything I would consider using over any of my coticules. David sent me a piece of Lorraine once and it is good but not a coticule killer by any means.


Never personally done a blind test... But I've owned enough bbw that if anything, I would be inclined to want it to be a good shave. I don't even use the stuff for knives. One of the least useful natural stones out there in my experience.

I keep a few pieces around to back unbacked coticules I buy and that's about it.

 

[kcb5150]

You should take anything they said about bbw with a grain of salt...

 

[stone and strop]

You should take anything they said about bbw with a grain of salt...

How can that be considered BBW honing?
CrOx on the stone, and a ton of it at that, should be called honing on CrOx.

 

[ables]

You should take anything they said about bbw with a grain of salt...

Wow Ive never seen anyone absolutely SLATHER a stone with CrOX paste and hone on top of it like this fellow did for his final step. He also had a real thick dry slurry going at times. I guess there truely are multiple ways to skin a cat... Thanks for the video, quite interesting.

 

[kcb5150]

How can that be considered BBW honing?
CrOx on the stone, and a ton of it at that, should be called honing on CrOx.

That's enough crox to give mastro livi pause... When the person who runs the site treats crox almost like canned cake frosting on the bbw that is supposedly no worse..

 

[PaulMallorca]

I think I've been able to get good razor edges, sometimes great edges from most commonly known stones... but the BBW.
I find strange that out of the 30 or so vintage natural combos I've held over the years, no back side was good for much. Even the ones found with that side dished, proved disappointing.
Coticules are great for knives so I keep a couple of them for that purpose. With enough rock to last me and my kids a few life times, I'm pretty happy to use razor quality stones on knives and tools. What mater are the edges...

 

[kcb5150]

A nice dense bbw is good with knives, I will give it that, and the very red ones can be quite nice razor hones a lot of the time but they are practically a subset. A lot of them are in that same blah zone I put random slates in.

 

[jason12768]

For me personally my La Nouvelle Veine BBW is absolutely killer. Hard vein to come by these days though.

I'll have to revisit finishing on my BBWs again to see; I've moved onto other finishers that I prefer more than Coticules/BBWs.

Using my La Grise's BBW side dry also gave very good edges, most of my BBWs when used dry give good edges. But nobody on the old coti forum liked honing dry, except a few people, so it was never much discussed.

Try honing a razor on a BBW dry, it removes most of the irregularities from your edge and gives you a super keen razor you can then go on about finishing. I've shaved with many too and they're actually good keenness wise, but could use extra smoothness.
But I understand if you don't like it,
I like to go from my BBW -> Coticule -> dedicated finisher in all honesty
My bbw gives me the best keenness, the coti the best smoothness, but I could never get the combination of both on either stone. Ergo I use my BBW to refine and pre-finish my syntehtic edges and the Coticule as a true pre-finisher.

YMMV, I find the BBW to be of exceptional usefulness, maybe not as a finisher, but a very capable stone in its own right. It easily adds keenness coming from a synthetic while adding smoothness and being more skin friendly.

I also think many BBW sides were used before going to the Coticule side, that's how many of them are found in the wild over in Belgium. So I do think they were certainly useful and used as such.

To each their own though, I like using mine a lot, dry, but I also like honing on the Coticule dry. Which made many think I was a heathen on the old Coti forum, heh!

PS I don't understand putting crox on a stone, at all though.

 

[BBS Kirk]

I just nailed an edge with this new stone. It was my 2nd time on it and I used mineral oil. Boom! Silky edge.

 

[Basil]

I just nailed an edge with this new stone. It was my 2nd time on it and I used mineral oil. Boom! Silky edge.

Awesome! Oil never fails on a coti.

 

[BBS Kirk]

Awesome! Oil never fails on a coti.

I’m actually starting to think that oil is the way to go with coticules. I have 2 coti’s and every time I use oil, I get a keener edge. It is easily washed off. No harm done. Silky edge.

 

[Basil]

I’m actually starting to think that oil is the way to go with coticules. I have 2 coti’s and every time I use oil, I get a keener edge. It is easily washed off. No harm done. Silky edge.

I use a drop of dish soap and it does the trick for me. I’m not a huge fan of oil on stones.

 

[Adonay]

Imho. The bbws that I have I don't consider finishers. For me, bbw is an excellent pre-finisher. I always use it before submitting on coti. For me it saves coti and makes the process more faster.

 

[BBS Kirk]

Wow, I just finished a razor with mineral oil on this coti. The edge was superb. Oil it is from now on for me with coticules. It is proven to increase the keenness and smoothness.