Oil on Coti

[wdwrx]

Just curious to hear if anyone has tried oil on their coti, and what their findings were?
Every now and again I come across a reference in old texts about using Belgium Razor Hones with oil. 100 years ago, this seemed to be a widely accepted practice, yet seemingly is not done anymore.

I plan on giving this a go, as I don't believe the oil will hurt my coti (someone please stop me if I'm wrong about that) because it is non-porous. It is reported to have provided a very keen edge. Apparently a smoother edge than lather on a coti.

I found the reference here, in a 1895 Essay on Barber's Razor's, Razor Hones, Razor strops and Razor Honing.

 

[wdwrx]

Ha. didn't take me 20 minutes to try it. Let the flaming begin, but I think this is something.

I started by putting a tiny drop of mineral oil on my coti on a corner and making sure I could clean it off. When that showed positive, I went to it with yet another of my not-so-hot- dilucot edges and some mineral oil

At first, the layer of oil was a little thick, and maybe a little too viscous for best effect, but i was amazed at the level of abrasion i felt on what should have felt like a very smooth edge. After about 50 laps, the oil had thinned out, and the feed-back also had smoothed right out. It came off the oil laden hone much keener than when it went on. Much keener: HHT 5 after stropping.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I've never done oil on a coti, but on my BBW it is a little bit finer than finishing on water, but still not a satisfactory edge for me. I haven't gotten the hang of BBW finishing, and haven't really put in the effort trying as I already own coticules and while it may give an edge as good (Bart and Rich have hinted at this if I remember right), I've not heard any suggestions of it being in any way better.

I'd be curious to hear more results of coti on oil though, and may try it eventually.

 

[wdwrx]

I'll know more tonight after a shave, but the preliminary results are very promising.
The box my stone came in, and just about every reference I've come across from "back in the day" says that they "May be used wit water or oil".
I can't believe I'm the first to try this.

This little essay is a very interesting read. The honing section is very interesting.

 

[honed]

I have not tried it.
But in theory it should be able to give a finer edge then water only.

The oil slows down the process a bit compared to water when using a coarser stone & knifes & chisels. And thus gives a finer edge.
So if this applies to cotis, you might be on to something!

The coticule is non-porous, so it might not suck any oil in.
Other hones won't work at all with water once oil has been used on them.

And for me my coticule is far to good (& expensive!) to be experimenting on.
But thanks alot for taking one for the team

 

[wdwrx]

YES!!!!!
This is it! This is the breakthrough I needed to get my coti working for me.
I just shaved with one of the smoothest edges I've ever gotten! Like, freaking EVER!

I feel kinda silly now... I been beating the heck outa Bart's dilucot method wondering what the hell was wrong with me. I mean, I can follow instructions, but with my coti and water, I just couldn't do it. One trip back with a bit of oil on the stone has made all the difference in the world!

I guess those guys must have known what they were doing back then.

And the coti is fine after the oil, a bit of dish soap and it cleaned right up. No harm.

 

[gary haywood]

nice one criss, i never tryed oil my self . i have plenty of clipper oil which is similar to mineral oil i may give it ago

 

[wdwrx]

Thanks Gary,
My clue was in that essay where he writes about the type of coti that is a yellow stone glued to the "slate" back as being coarser and faster, which is exactly what mine is. I can't remember if it's that essay or some of the other old texts I've read that described the difference between lather and oil finishes on a coti, and oil is described as providing a finer edge than lather. And in my experience, lather provides a finer edge on my stone than water alone so it seemed a natural to take it to the next step

The light bulb came on!

I guess I just needed to think outside the box a little.

I'm still amazed at the difference.

 

[gary haywood]

i've tryed lather its a good indicator to wheather the edge is making good contact. also makes it easier to control the blade .

 

[wdwrx]

TBH, I'm kind of surprised that lather isn't recommended more often. Every old text I've read seems to take it for granted that lather is used, almost regardless of the stone.
I actually bought a puck of Williams for exactly that reason some time ago.
The lather, I find, offers some support to the blade and, as you mentioned Gary, helps to control the blade a bit.
On my coti, I found it makes a big difference in the keenness I was able to achieve. And it just seems so darn logical.

I think I'll hunt down some actual honing oil, or light machine oil; I think that the mineral oil I used was a little thick. Until some of it got pushed off, I think it was actually floating the edge right up off the hone. I guess it wouldn't really matter much if I used Olive Oil either, since the hone isn't porous and it would get cleaned right off. Now that I'm thinking of it, I do have some Castor oil which I believe used to be the basis for engine oil... hence Castrol Motor Oil.

 

[gary haywood]

may be baby oil . when i was i oz i was talking to an old barber and he showed me his milk stone (coti) he said he set the edge on an norton hone which was red one side and black the other and the size of a barbers hone. then he would just hone on milk stone with lather which we no as coticule. he said this was how they were taught at college years ago.he also said he never used slurry.

ps i will post you items tomorrow it was bank holiday today .

cheers gary

 

[honed]

I love a good experiment!

This is really nice information!

I really hope Bart chimes in when he can find the time for it.

 

[wdwrx]

I love a good experiment!

This is really nice information!

I really hope Bart chimes in when he can find the time for it.

me too!

 

[Bart]

Great work, Chris.
It kinda surprises me that honing on oil gives you such a big breakthrough. It indeed does not hurt to use oil on a Coticule. As a matter of fact, a lot of woodworkers use their Coticule with oil, because that's what they are already using on their coarse carborundum stones. However, having played around with it, on some Coticules I have noticed that the oil did manage to be absorbed by the rock, leaving parts of the surface slightly darker. It did not affect the use later on, when I switched back to water. Yet I could not clean the slight discoloration with either detergent or mineral spirits.

What I found, trying different honing fluids, was that the effect of oil (I used plain mineral oil) matched the effect of lather. I sometimes put shaving lather on top of a Coticule and reported about my uses for it in this article.

Maybe it is important here to point out that you need to be careful with the word "lather" as it is used in many old resources about sharpening razors on natural stones. I recently learned that barbers used "shaving lather" for shaving, and an "abrasive lather" for sharpening. This does not always refer to the same thing. The abrasive lather was sometimes what we now commonly know as "slurry". In Belgium we speak about "abrasive milk", and this does not mean that we pour cow milk on a whetstone.

In my personal experience, the differences between oil and lather were indiscernible, and the advantage over plain water was only minor in some cases, non-existent in others.
When mixed with slurry, it was clearly slowing down the performance of the hone. At that point, I also stopped adding the drop of detergent to the water. That drop of detergent works like a charm with DMT hones, but for bevel correction, Coticule slurry is best raised with plain water. At the end of a Coticule-only procedure, when we approach the keenness limit of the hone, we no longer care about speed of abrasion, so it's definitely worth pursuing a few different options.

Whatever helps to get that evasive perfect edge, is great information to share.


Bart.

 

[wdwrx]

thanks Bart,
It's been quite a journey... Learning the dilucot method has been a real challenge. I've learned a tremendous amount about all my hones... and got a fair bit of practice in ...

Mind you, one razor isn't much of a statistic. I've yet to repeat it. I'm quite confident I can...because I had gotten to the point where I could very consistantly reach a certain level of keenness, but no further, no matter what iteration of the method I tried. Everytime I've added a level of lubrication, the keennes level I could achieve rose. I could get a glimpse of what might be possible, but with this stone and my skills, it was just, (just!) out of my reach. In my mind, treating it like the combo hone mentioned in that essay, as being a fast, fairly corse hone and taking measures to reduce that effect really seemed to tip it over the edge.

I realize that essay is a little ambiguous in regards to the use of the term lather. Turn of the century publications seem to use it somewhat interchangably. There does seem to be quite a meme in the Barbering trade regarding the use of shaving lather, though I could be mis-interpreting that.
I've found the reference to the use of lard, sperm oil, and other oils eye opening since this is never mentioned on the forums (not that there would be a huge supply of whale oil, even over the interwebs) and since the hone seems impervious to oil trying a few experiments seemed in order.

I've got another, different coti and a freshly honed razor on their way to me thanks to the kindness of Gary, so i look forward now to learning what I can achieve with it, and how it compares to an edge done by on my other coti. All part of the learning process, and a fun challenge.

 

[danjared]

Have you tried a thin honing oil such as the one that Norton makes? I'm curious about the difference. I have that handy and will try to give it a go in the next few days. I don't have any plain old mineral oil at the moment, though. I should pick some of that up.

 

[Chimensch]

Great work, Chris.
It kinda surprises me that honing on oil gives you such a big breakthrough. It indeed does not hurt to use oil on a Coticule. As a matter of fact, a lot of woodworkers use their Coticule with oil, because that's what they are already using on their coarse carborundum stones. However, having played around with it, on some Coticules I have noticed that the oil did manage to be absorbed by the rock, leaving parts of the surface slightly darker. It did not affect the use later on, when I switched back to water. Yet I could not clean the slight discoloration with either detergent or mineral spirits.

What I found, trying different honing fluids, was that the effect of oil (I used plain mineral oil) matched the effect of lather. I sometimes put shaving lather on top of a Coticule and reported about my uses for it in this article.

Maybe it is important here to point out that you need to be careful with the word "lather" as it is used in many old resources about sharpening razors on natural stones. I recently learned that barbers used "shaving lather" for shaving, and an "abrasive lather" for sharpening. This does not always refer to the same thing. The abrasive lather was sometimes what we now commonly know as "slurry". In Belgium we speak about "abrasive milk", and this does not mean that we pour cow milk on a whetstone.

In my personal experience, the differences between oil and lather were indiscernible, and the advantage over plain water was only minor in some cases, non-existent in others.
When mixed with slurry, it was clearly slowing down the performance of the hone. At that point, I also stopped adding the drop of detergent to the water. That drop of detergent works like a charm with DMT hones, but for bevel correction, Coticule slurry is best raised with plain water. At the end of a Coticule-only procedure, when we approach the keenness limit of the hone, we no longer care about speed of abrasion, so it's definitely worth pursuing a few different options.

Whatever helps to get that evasive perfect edge, is great information to share.


Bart.

Bart, as always your posts are very informative. I just want to add one comment. When honing with water only, I usually add a drop of liquid soap, especially if the water beads and doesn't spread evenly over the stone. Some hones (such as my Honyama Awaseto) are so hard/dense that the water instantly beads and it is necessary to break the surface tension. The main advantage for me is that I can easily see the water flowing over the top of the edge, which indicates good contact with the hone. When using slurry, the slurry has the effect of breaking the surface tension so it's not needed.

 

[Blue58]

Has anyone tried 3 in 1 oil? its a very light machine oil and its not expensive.

 

[Bart]

When honing with water only, I usually add a drop of liquid soap, especially if the water beads and doesn't spread evenly over the stone. Some hones (such as my Honyama Awaseto) are so hard/dense that the water instantly beads and it is necessary to break the surface tension. The main advantage for me is that I can easily see the water flowing over the top of the edge, which indicates good contact with the hone. When using slurry, the slurry has the effect of breaking the surface tension so it's not needed.

I fully concur. That's why I said that the drop of detergent works like a charm on DMTs. Without it the water just sits in drops on the surface, like on the waxed hood of a car.

Concerning different kinds of oil, inspired by Chris' enthusiasm, I 'm giving it another go. I decided to try WD40, because I have it available and it supports Chris' theory that more lubrication leads to better edge definition. We'll see about that. I'll keep you guys posted.

Kind regards,
Bart.

 

[honed]

I fully concur. That's why I said that the drop of detergent works like a charm on DMTs. Without it the water just sits in drops on the surface, like on the waxed hood of a car.

Concerning different kinds of oil, inspired by Chris' enthusiasm, I 'm giving it another go. I decided to try WD40, because I have it available and it supports Chris' theory that more lubrication leads to better edge definition. We'll see about that. I'll keep you guys posted.

Kind regards,
Bart.

So nice to see you in this thread Bart!

I think WD40 might be a good choice.
It's commonly used by woodworkers around here as a "sharpening oil"