I recently received a new coticule from The Superior Shave. I explained to Jarrod what I was looking for and he made a recommendation. I wanted a 40 x 175 mm stone to see if narrower would be easier, and I wanted something a bit different in feel than the stone I already had. Jarrod made a recommendation and I ordered that stone. When he was getting it ready to ship he emailed me to tell me it turned out that stone was a natural combo with bits of pink on the blue side. I hadnt been looking for a combo as I have a 50 x 150 BBW but thought it would be interesting to see what it was about. This is the stone I received:
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It has an interesting look on both sides. The yellow side has what looks like stretch marks on the belly of a woman who has recently given birth. For those of you who cant relate to that Ill say it has lenticular striations at an angle and the cells have round inclusions in them. The overall effect is iridescence, with a sort of pearly depth to the stone surface as if tiny grains are floating in a liquid. The blue side is similar with the inclusion of a couple of pink dots on it.
The stone has a strange sort of feel to it. With slurry on either side it has a subtle sandy feedback but the most noticeable thing is a gummy sort of resistance to the blade sliding along it. This gets stronger as the edge gets sharper and toward the end of the slurry dilution hollow blades emit a whistling squeak. On plain water the gummy resistance is very strong on some blades, actually inhibiting a light touch and being a bit of a pain. Rinsing every 10 laps or so when doing X strokes on water alone reduces, but does not eliminate, the sticky feeling, which gets worse and worse as sharpening proceeds. I tried putting some shaving lather on the stone, which eliminates most of the sticking, but also most of the feedback. Lately Ive been dipping the stone in a sink of dishwater, since Ive been honing at the kitchen sink (ah the advantages of not being married). A solution of dishwater lubricates the surface and eliminates most of the gummy sticking, and the garnets that wash off get the dishes nice and clean afterwards ☺
The sticking was an annoyance and hindered a nice, gentle delicate dilucot procedure, as Id have to push too hard to overcome the stickiness. I was reading on Barts site and somewhere he said that the blue stone on slurry can create a sharper edge than the yellow on slurry. I had been reading about combining the blue and yellow stones starting with the yellow on slurry, proceeding through a blue step and finishing on the yellow. So I played around with that and last night ended up with some pretty sharp razors using a method I outline here. They werent the sharpest, only popping hairs every once in a while, but I could go from dull edge to ready for the strop in 5 minutes or so and it minimized the time on the gummy, squeaky stage.
Drag edge at about a 45-60 degree angle across side of hone on both sides of blade to dull and clean up edge. Do this one or more times until it feels right.
Build thick slurry on blue side.
Set of 20 half strokes on each side of blade, (add gentle circular motion on warped edges with problems)
Repeat set of 10-20 half strokes until entire edge gets the feel The feel is that feeling that nothing is changing as you stroke suggesting the rock has done what it can at that level of slurry. On this stone on both sides the feel is usually accompanied by a rapid onset of the gummy feeling and whistling on a hollow ground blade.
Wash half of stone off under running water
Repeat sets of 10-15 half strokes until the feel
Wash half of stone off under running water, etc.
Repeat 4-6 times until the stone is pretty clean of slurry
By this time the stone is grabbing and squeaking after only a few strokes
Rinse stone and blade well with rubbing of fingers
Repeat a set of 6-15 half strokes on just water (edge matures faster now so fewer strokes are required to get the feel)
Rinse well, do set of 10-15 X strokes on blue, harder to do more because of building gummy resistance, dishwater helps keep it light
At this stage the edge shaves arm hair better than any other edge Ive ever created. Mouth dropping good, I did a double take first time. 50 licks on my leather strop and it will vibrate on the HHT and occasionally pop the hair. On one blade it popped hairs off the stone with no stropping.
At first I was finishing with 20-50 X strokes on the yellow side with only water. But I noticed that the arm hair test seemed worse after that treatment. Those blades would pop hairs on the HHT erratically, but I shaved with them this morning and had nice, smooth shaves with no irritation. Maybe not the sharpest but good shaves.
Today I played with omitting the final yellow lap and the edge seemed at least as sharp. Tomorrow I am going to try shaving with the blade that came off the blue side and was stropped without honing on the yellow side.
So this is a strange and wonderful stone. Has anyone else experienced the stickiness? It really feels like there is a gummy substance on the stone, but it is clean as a whistle. I relapped it thinking maybe it wasnt quite flat but it was and the lapping didnt change anything. The sticking gets worse and worse as sharpening proceeds, and is worse on some blades than on others. Ive read of a suction developing between the blade and stone and it feels kind of like that, but with that weird gummy vibe. I pretty much cant hone just on water without a surfactant of some kind, dilute dishwater being pretty good. Does anyone else need a lubricant to hone on a coti? Bart talks a bit about honing with lather on his site.
This stone is awesome even with (or is it because) of that trait and I love the longer, narrower stone for honing. The blue side is very interesting, more so than I anticipated. I had never really gotten the point of a combo before. Having a combo means you are setting one of the sides down on a surface that in my kitchen may have crud on it, so I have to be more careful. I had a separate blue and having two stones seemed more practical than two in one. But the blue side on this is totally different than my other blue stone and from what Ive read it seems to have something to do with the juxtaposition of the layers and migration of minerals before or during the metamorphosis.
Any feedback would be appreciated as well as anyones educated guess as to what sort of layer this particular combo came from.
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It has an interesting look on both sides. The yellow side has what looks like stretch marks on the belly of a woman who has recently given birth. For those of you who cant relate to that Ill say it has lenticular striations at an angle and the cells have round inclusions in them. The overall effect is iridescence, with a sort of pearly depth to the stone surface as if tiny grains are floating in a liquid. The blue side is similar with the inclusion of a couple of pink dots on it.
The stone has a strange sort of feel to it. With slurry on either side it has a subtle sandy feedback but the most noticeable thing is a gummy sort of resistance to the blade sliding along it. This gets stronger as the edge gets sharper and toward the end of the slurry dilution hollow blades emit a whistling squeak. On plain water the gummy resistance is very strong on some blades, actually inhibiting a light touch and being a bit of a pain. Rinsing every 10 laps or so when doing X strokes on water alone reduces, but does not eliminate, the sticky feeling, which gets worse and worse as sharpening proceeds. I tried putting some shaving lather on the stone, which eliminates most of the sticking, but also most of the feedback. Lately Ive been dipping the stone in a sink of dishwater, since Ive been honing at the kitchen sink (ah the advantages of not being married). A solution of dishwater lubricates the surface and eliminates most of the gummy sticking, and the garnets that wash off get the dishes nice and clean afterwards ☺
The sticking was an annoyance and hindered a nice, gentle delicate dilucot procedure, as Id have to push too hard to overcome the stickiness. I was reading on Barts site and somewhere he said that the blue stone on slurry can create a sharper edge than the yellow on slurry. I had been reading about combining the blue and yellow stones starting with the yellow on slurry, proceeding through a blue step and finishing on the yellow. So I played around with that and last night ended up with some pretty sharp razors using a method I outline here. They werent the sharpest, only popping hairs every once in a while, but I could go from dull edge to ready for the strop in 5 minutes or so and it minimized the time on the gummy, squeaky stage.
Drag edge at about a 45-60 degree angle across side of hone on both sides of blade to dull and clean up edge. Do this one or more times until it feels right.
Build thick slurry on blue side.
Set of 20 half strokes on each side of blade, (add gentle circular motion on warped edges with problems)
Repeat set of 10-20 half strokes until entire edge gets the feel The feel is that feeling that nothing is changing as you stroke suggesting the rock has done what it can at that level of slurry. On this stone on both sides the feel is usually accompanied by a rapid onset of the gummy feeling and whistling on a hollow ground blade.
Wash half of stone off under running water
Repeat sets of 10-15 half strokes until the feel
Wash half of stone off under running water, etc.
Repeat 4-6 times until the stone is pretty clean of slurry
By this time the stone is grabbing and squeaking after only a few strokes
Rinse stone and blade well with rubbing of fingers
Repeat a set of 6-15 half strokes on just water (edge matures faster now so fewer strokes are required to get the feel)
Rinse well, do set of 10-15 X strokes on blue, harder to do more because of building gummy resistance, dishwater helps keep it light
At this stage the edge shaves arm hair better than any other edge Ive ever created. Mouth dropping good, I did a double take first time. 50 licks on my leather strop and it will vibrate on the HHT and occasionally pop the hair. On one blade it popped hairs off the stone with no stropping.
At first I was finishing with 20-50 X strokes on the yellow side with only water. But I noticed that the arm hair test seemed worse after that treatment. Those blades would pop hairs on the HHT erratically, but I shaved with them this morning and had nice, smooth shaves with no irritation. Maybe not the sharpest but good shaves.
Today I played with omitting the final yellow lap and the edge seemed at least as sharp. Tomorrow I am going to try shaving with the blade that came off the blue side and was stropped without honing on the yellow side.
So this is a strange and wonderful stone. Has anyone else experienced the stickiness? It really feels like there is a gummy substance on the stone, but it is clean as a whistle. I relapped it thinking maybe it wasnt quite flat but it was and the lapping didnt change anything. The sticking gets worse and worse as sharpening proceeds, and is worse on some blades than on others. Ive read of a suction developing between the blade and stone and it feels kind of like that, but with that weird gummy vibe. I pretty much cant hone just on water without a surfactant of some kind, dilute dishwater being pretty good. Does anyone else need a lubricant to hone on a coti? Bart talks a bit about honing with lather on his site.
This stone is awesome even with (or is it because) of that trait and I love the longer, narrower stone for honing. The blue side is very interesting, more so than I anticipated. I had never really gotten the point of a combo before. Having a combo means you are setting one of the sides down on a surface that in my kitchen may have crud on it, so I have to be more careful. I had a separate blue and having two stones seemed more practical than two in one. But the blue side on this is totally different than my other blue stone and from what Ive read it seems to have something to do with the juxtaposition of the layers and migration of minerals before or during the metamorphosis.
Any feedback would be appreciated as well as anyones educated guess as to what sort of layer this particular combo came from.