Hope you were muted 
No problem here, my company uses Teams for meetings, it has a 'no slice finger' app that comes with it.
The coticule is the truth!
- Thread starter nicepatina
- Start date
Hope you were muted No problem here, my company uses Teams for meetings, it has a 'no slice finger' app that comes with it.
Oh I bet that was a great shave! The ones that go to bone effortlessly are the best! That goes for knife edges too but they are usually a little more toothy and hurt more.
If you buy directly from Ardennes you can spesify/chose for razor use. The difference between select and standard grade might just be cosmetic. Select plus option, if available is/can be more desirable veins such as La Veinnette.
You can also write an email directly and they will pick a good stone for you.
Well, I've gone and done it. Just when I thought I was going to be part of the 'coti club' I took a left turn to the 'dark side'.
While I was looking over the Griffith site I saw the 8" x 3" Black Shadow for $125 with free shipping.
Possibly it'll do what I'm want with slurry and finishing with water or oil but who knows, I'll be finding out how it goes soon.
I may have to use the sandpaper or my carborundum stones to set the bevel and go from there.
It was just hard to turn it down at that price.
I did pick up from this thread something I was doing wrong while setting my bevels. I was getting a burr on one side, then the other and honing from there, I see that I need to continue this process until I balance out a burr on both sides with equal strokes. I had previously misunderstood the process and was probably why I didn't get far in the honing part.
Thanks for the help on my coticule search, maybe that'll be my next stone to buy.
While I was looking over the Griffith site I saw the 8" x 3" Black Shadow for $125 with free shipping.
Possibly it'll do what I'm want with slurry and finishing with water or oil but who knows, I'll be finding out how it goes soon.
I may have to use the sandpaper or my carborundum stones to set the bevel and go from there.
It was just hard to turn it down at that price.
I did pick up from this thread something I was doing wrong while setting my bevels. I was getting a burr on one side, then the other and honing from there, I see that I need to continue this process until I balance out a burr on both sides with equal strokes. I had previously misunderstood the process and was probably why I didn't get far in the honing part.
Thanks for the help on my coticule search, maybe that'll be my next stone to buy.
I would recommend at least a decent mid range stone (5-6k) before jumping to something like the Black Shadow.
Burr based honing the traditional way (knife honing) should not be needed to verify that you have a set bevel. Just my opinion.
Hope things work out for you.
The Black Shadow will not do what a coti will do. You will need a razor to be pretty much shave ready before going on to the Black shadow. I personally don't use a slurry on it, seems to take an edge back. Very nice finisher, congrats
Hello all, I've only been on the forum a short while and it's been a pleasure, a great group.
I've been using a shavette for a couple of months now, but want to start using SR's. I had a decent shave after honing with the Genco but when I tried to get it sharper I started my downhill slide in my honing abilities.
At the moment I have 4 vintage razors eagerly waiting on me to give them purpose again
After many hours of using cheap carborundum stones to set the bevel and honing (400/1000/5000/1000) I've finally accepted I'm getting my arse royaly kicked , I've decided to go with a coticule.
Yes, I know it is probably ultimately me, but I'm justifying buying a better stone through it
I see two that I'm interested in and your guidence and suggestions on this or a differnt purchase will be greatly appreciated.
Here's the page that has the $115 one and the $270 ones I'm looking at, (the $270 one will take a little longer for me to get, I can get the $115 now)
Sharpening Stones
Essential to the straight razor shave is a keen and smooth edge which must be polished to perfection with a multitude of various natural and man made hones. We are firm believers in honing on traditional natural stones and we strive to furnish the finest the world has to offer.www.griffithshavinggoods.com
Will the higher priced one be worth the wait or is the less expensive one a good option that I won't regret later.
From what I understand the higher price one can do 'bevel to finish', while the lower price one I'll need to use other options for the bevel setting part.
I see coticules can be controversial, some seem to not be able to get the finish they want. I found this video from DrMatt interesting, I'm sure most of you may have already seen it.
Thanks,
Rick
People have different experience with coticules because not every stone is suitable for straight razor honing. Some probably buy them blindly and end up in frustration.
Same goes for vintage ones - if you don't have experience you will not know what you are buying.
Contact Rob via email at ardennes-coticule.be and tell him what you want, he will help you to choose the stone- it's also important to mention via order form what you intend to do with your stone (razor honing, sharpening tools, knives etc.)
Standard and selected are the same, difference is in size and in cosmetics - selected ones looks uniform and perfect, standard have streak, strains and similar which doesn't affect honing at all.
Thanks everyone, I appreciate the input. As all of you already know even though honing isn't rocket science I've come to find that their is a certain 'art' to it.
It amazes me that something that appears on the surface to be just 'blade sharpening' can be such an intricate task loaded with an array of techniques and creativity.
One thing I know for sure, I used to 'despise' shaving, I'd go as many days in between as possible without actually growing a beard,
Now, I look forward to the next shave, sometimes waiting a few of days just so I can watch what these razors can do so amazingly well
It amazes me that something that appears on the surface to be just 'blade sharpening' can be such an intricate task loaded with an array of techniques and creativity.
One thing I know for sure, I used to 'despise' shaving, I'd go as many days in between as possible without actually growing a beard,
Now, I look forward to the next shave, sometimes waiting a few of days just so I can watch what these razors can do so amazingly well
It actually was! Used it this morning. It was so smooth it felt like I was shaving with a the concave of a soup spoon, except the BBS lasted until 7 p.m. If I can only get my Gold Dollar to take that edge....
I had never heard of a Black Shadow stone before this. Just looked it up. Is that basically analogous to a French black Arkansas?
I was being 100% serious, but after I reread it the post seemed kind of sarcastic. I've never used a black shadow but I thought it was just a slate.
Back to Coticules. You should be able to do all of your honing using two stones: 1) one bevel setter like a synthetic 1k stone, and 2) one Coticule. But you will need to become proficient at diluting Coticule slurry using the Dilucot or Unicot methods - both of which have a learning curve:
Vintage Coticules are damn cool, but new, modern Coticules can be easily purchased that produce damn nice edges.
For what it's worth, I bought two vintage and four new, modern Coticules, and experimented with Dilucot with mixed results, getting some damn nice edges and some not so damn nice edges. Here's the thing, once you have a great, shave-ready edge, there is no reason to use Dilucot - you will only take the edge back and forth and unnecessarily remove metal. Most guys use water or oil, or water with a mist of slurry which they gradually dilute to finish shave-ready edges.
As of now, I mostly use my Coticules with only water (lots of water) to finish 8k and shave-ready edges. And one of my favorite finishers is a Standard Coticule that I bought direct from Ardennes-Coticule asking Rob to ensure that the stone would be good for finishing razors.
The wider the stone, the easier it is to keep a perfectly straight edge on the stone. That said, not all razors have perfectly straight edges. For someone learning to hone, I would recommend a 150 x 50 mm or a 130 x 70 mm stone. Then later, you can get a narrower 30 or 40 mm wide hone. Learning to hone on a 125 x 30 mm hone should improve your honing skills and is convenient for razors with slight warps.
And as you buy more Coticules, you can always cull the herd by selling the stones you no longer use on the Buy Sell Trade (BST) forum.
Vintage Coticules are damn cool, but new, modern Coticules can be easily purchased that produce damn nice edges.
For what it's worth, I bought two vintage and four new, modern Coticules, and experimented with Dilucot with mixed results, getting some damn nice edges and some not so damn nice edges. Here's the thing, once you have a great, shave-ready edge, there is no reason to use Dilucot - you will only take the edge back and forth and unnecessarily remove metal. Most guys use water or oil, or water with a mist of slurry which they gradually dilute to finish shave-ready edges.
As of now, I mostly use my Coticules with only water (lots of water) to finish 8k and shave-ready edges. And one of my favorite finishers is a Standard Coticule that I bought direct from Ardennes-Coticule asking Rob to ensure that the stone would be good for finishing razors.
The wider the stone, the easier it is to keep a perfectly straight edge on the stone. That said, not all razors have perfectly straight edges. For someone learning to hone, I would recommend a 150 x 50 mm or a 130 x 70 mm stone. Then later, you can get a narrower 30 or 40 mm wide hone. Learning to hone on a 125 x 30 mm hone should improve your honing skills and is convenient for razors with slight warps.
And as you buy more Coticules, you can always cull the herd by selling the stones you no longer use on the Buy Sell Trade (BST) forum.
Last edited by a moderator:
- Thread starter
- #92
I 100% agree with what you said and thats the exact set up I have. a 1k king stone and a coticule. For reasons Id rather not get into, I had to reset my edge on the 1k, and as it was my first time doing it, it took me 3 dilucot sessions to finally get the edge to where I wanted it to be. I am thinking I didnt spend enough time at each dilutions. Anyways, once the edge was shave ready, yes I also dropped the dilucot method and went with just upkeeping with mineral oil on coticule.
I'm interested in Coticule honing experiences by you guys.
My Dilucot has been a hit or miss it seems and I'm stubborn sometimes, so I kept honing purely using a Dilucot on some ""troublesome"" razors.
My razors that were easy to hone using the Dilucot shave divine and other razor are OK, but not great as the others.
Then I realised there was the Unicot, simple, easy and highly efficient due to the layer of tape for finishing. It"s an outstanding idea really.
I just touched up one razor I never really got "there" with the Dilucot and put on 1 layer of tape for a Unicot, we're talking purely finishing here, my bevel was already set and refined on the Coti without any tape.
Very light water-y slurry, 20-30 x-strokes and following up on plain water for 50 x-strokes give or take. I have a 100mm x 40mm / 4" x 1.6" stone so I might've done a few more laps.
All my pre-shave testing seem much better than before and easily beat or rival my best Dilucot edges, but the real test will be later of course, the shave is the only thing that truly matters.
That's what the OP reminded me of here by doing a power touch-up and having amazing results, it's an extremely well thought out idea finishing or touching up a razor this way by creating a secondary finishing bevel.
All you have to do is cut a new primary bevel whenever it's time to do so and that won't take long on a Coticule with slurry either.
Impressive.
My Dilucot has been a hit or miss it seems and I'm stubborn sometimes, so I kept honing purely using a Dilucot on some ""troublesome"" razors.
My razors that were easy to hone using the Dilucot shave divine and other razor are OK, but not great as the others.
Then I realised there was the Unicot, simple, easy and highly efficient due to the layer of tape for finishing. It"s an outstanding idea really.
I just touched up one razor I never really got "there" with the Dilucot and put on 1 layer of tape for a Unicot, we're talking purely finishing here, my bevel was already set and refined on the Coti without any tape.
Very light water-y slurry, 20-30 x-strokes and following up on plain water for 50 x-strokes give or take. I have a 100mm x 40mm / 4" x 1.6" stone so I might've done a few more laps.
All my pre-shave testing seem much better than before and easily beat or rival my best Dilucot edges, but the real test will be later of course, the shave is the only thing that truly matters.
That's what the OP reminded me of here by doing a power touch-up and having amazing results, it's an extremely well thought out idea finishing or touching up a razor this way by creating a secondary finishing bevel.
All you have to do is cut a new primary bevel whenever it's time to do so and that won't take long on a Coticule with slurry either.
Impressive.
Last edited:
My only Coti honing method is what I call a modified Dulicot. I use dilutions but there is no particular schedule. It's not totally random, I base the progression based on feedback. My main approach with any Coti is to simplify the operation. Added steps and distractions never seemed to be worth the bother. The Coti alone will take me where I want to go, I just have to learn how to use it. These days I usually finish on what I call trace-slurry and I'm good to go.
Feedback is king with Coticules, honing on them is a patience based system that can require much focus, attention, trial, error.
In my beginning with them I would use Cromox after the Coti because my sharpness wasn't there. Did that for about a month.
Tossing the Chromox forced me to push through to a successful finish on the Coti. The issue was me, not the stone.
Getting out of my own way has solved many honing issues.
Feedback is king with Coticules, honing on them is a patience based system that can require much focus, attention, trial, error.
In my beginning with them I would use Cromox after the Coti because my sharpness wasn't there. Did that for about a month.
Tossing the Chromox forced me to push through to a successful finish on the Coti. The issue was me, not the stone.
Getting out of my own way has solved many honing issues.
Very true.
It took me a while to master my Coticules as well, but I finally got there and get my smoothest yet sharpest edges ever from my La Veinette stones.
I also noticed I get the same results from either a Unicot or Dilucot. It doesn't matter. I just love do do the entire process, bevel set to finish in one go. It's a really fun method and works so well and is actually rather fast.
It just took me a while to get that very last bit out of these stones, but now that I have, amazing edges.
