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The Coticule Edge

As a fresh recruit I am curious how often folks believe razors should be sharpened (as opposed to stropping)

The simple answer is when the edge begins to tug or when you feel like touching the edge up. And you must strop between each shave.

The long answer is there are multiple factors, including the quality of the bevel, the steel and the bevel angle.

When I started, I needed to touch up my edges every 3 to 5 shaves. Now my edges last much longer - normally over 10 shaves. I assume this is the result of my honing improving over time.

I should add that I often touch up edges before it is required simply because I enjoy honing and trying different edges. And this is one reason why I have mainly bought user-grade razors.
 
It's a personal preference thing. My development has been like @Herrenberg above. I am now at the stage where I just prefer a freshly maintained edge before each shave.

I enjoy after-shave edge maintenance. It takes me only a couple of minutes and I have the time to do it.

With good SR shaving technique, many can go for a hundred or more shaves with a blade before they feel that the edge needs to be refreshed on whetstones.
Having followed your posts here, I find myself wondering whether you are still using pasted balsa strops?
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Having followed your posts here, I find myself wondering whether you are still using pasted balsa strops?
I have a little over 30 SRs in my normal rotation and about half of those are still maintained on 0.1μm pasted hanging balsa.
 

David

B&B’s Champion Corn Shucker
While I hone almost exclusively on jnats my personal edges are done on a big coticule I’ve had for almost a decade. I love the coticule edge feel when shaving and from a honing prospective nothing exposes liabilities in technique or procedure like a coticule.
Is it that big dressante you had years ago?
 
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Is it that big dressante you had years ago?
Yes Sir! I finally found a slurry stone that matches it well, it only took a few years. Most were too hard for my taste but I found one on eBay for $15 and took a chance, it’s soft with high frailty and brakes down nicely.
 
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David

B&B’s Champion Corn Shucker
Yes Sir! I finally found a slurry stone that matches it well, it only took a few years. Most were too hard for my taste but I found one on eBay for $15 and took a chance, it’s soft with high frailty and brakes down nicely.
Nice. I shaved off that stone many times. It’s a whisker melter for sure!
 
I definitely prefer some slurry stones to others on coticules. I have two I tend to default to that are quite different and I have a cube of la verte I begged off of Ardennes years ago that will slurry base stone off of anything apart from the hardest where it just skates or sticks. I kind of dread it at present but one of my main slurries for years is bottoming out. I have a few ruined cotis I bought just to cut up to get potentially compelling tomos. One is a lpb someone broke in a drop and fused back unevenly with what seems like some sort of rubber cement. I actually cut up one of those really soft, open unstable ones around the seams into usable tomos not too long ago. Thin but usable
 
Some say the slurry stone doesn’t matter, I think it definitely does. I have a box full but only use a couple.
I also have a box of coticule slurry stones. In my experience they do make a difference.
It does not seem like this subject is covered that much. A LV vs LPB slurry stone feels quite different on the same base stone.
I usually use one fast slurry stone and one fine for the final dilution.
On some coticules a La lune or a slate nagura bridges the gap when you are moving to the water only phase.
Some of the hard and glassy stones need a little help. Maybe a finer coticule nagura with less garnets and helps.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
This is the type of bevel finish I am now getting off my little vintage coticule. The photo is of my Gold Dollar W59, honed yesterday and shaved with this morning. One of the best shaves I have ever given myself.

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It's great when all things come together.
 
This is the type of bevel finish I am now getting off my little vintage coticule. The photo is of my Gold Dollar W59, honed yesterday and shaved with this morning. One of the best shaves I have ever given myself.

It's great when all things come together.
It's weird the way a coticule edge can look terrible under magnification until you put it to your face and go wow.
I've done mirror edges up to 0.05Um where you struggle to see any scratch pattern at all and coticule edges that look similar to yours and while the film edge will take the face off you the coticule is smooth with zero feedback from an alum block.
One of my favorite shavers is a wedge done on a natural combo that, when I first tried it, I thought I'd messed up and it wasn't shaving at all until I saw the stubble was completely gone, Sublime.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
....
One of my favorite shavers is a wedge done on a natural combo that, when I first tried it, I thought I'd messed up and it wasn't shaving at all until I saw the stubble was completely gone, Sublime.
I had the same experience this morning. If I hadn't seen my cut whiskers in the lather (I wipe my blade on a sponge for that very reason), I could have sworn that none were being cut.
 
It's weird the way a coticule edge can look terrible under magnification until you put it to your face and go wow.
I've done mirror edges up to 0.05Um where you struggle to see any scratch pattern at all and coticule edges that look similar to yours and while the film edge will take the face off you the coticule is smooth with zero feedback from an alum block.
One of my favorite shavers is a wedge done on a natural combo that, when I first tried it, I thought I'd messed up and it wasn't shaving at all until I saw the stubble was completely gone, Sublime.
You just need to inspect and compare under higher magnification.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Agreed. Since I started really getting into my coticule I stopped scoping my edges to be honest.
I concur. Ignorance can be bliss. We should be honing for the shave quality, not the looks of the bevel surface. Good looks of bevel and shave quality are often not related.
 
I also have a box of coticule slurry stones. In my experience they do make a difference.
It does not seem like this subject is covered that much. A LV vs LPB slurry stone feels quite different on the same base stone.
I usually use one fast slurry stone and one fine for the final dilution.
On some coticules a La lune or a slate nagura bridges the gap when you are moving to the water only phase.
Some of the hard and glassy stones need a little help. Maybe a finer coticule nagura with less garnets and helps.
Multiple slurry stones of varying hardness work well on Coticules And take higher level discipline. I like the hard benchstone/soft slurry stone combination, Coticules are complicated enough.
 
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