Coticule love... show off your rock

Here is a very new and a very hard stone (and one of my favorite razors). I have gotten it two or three month ago from Ardennes Coticule directly. It is an incredible hone, I can cut a hanging hair more than 20mm from the holding point before I use a leather strop. I don´t say that some Jnat edges can not look a bit more polished but this edge from the picture (200x magnification, took direct after using the stone) gives a stellar shave. Super sharp and super skin-friendly.

Coticules create a very durable edge, as well. While a coti edge won't look better than a 13k,20k, 30k or 100k edge coming off the stone, it CAN get very close with the right coti.

And it WILL look a lot better after the shave. Extremely refined synthetic edges get really banged up in the shave. It's probably why ultra-fine abrasives require techniques (pico-paper, alternating between mediums, waving the razor over your head and chanting "Chippee Chip Chirraa" under the light of a full moon) to get acceptable performance out of them... people are blindly pursuing a way to strengthen the edge without realizing their aim, and when they stumble across something that succeeds, it becomes a new technique that works, they don't know why, but it does.

Some Jnats do as well, but others don't. It's what I'm beginning to feel distinguishes a high quality razor Jnat from a low quality one. I've had Jnats that gave extremely refined edges, but couldn't be used with razors below a particular grind angle, as the edge would fail spectacularly, while others that gave similar edges had no problems with these same razors.

On the contrary, Coticule "quality" seems to lean more towards the other side. Coticules don't ever seem to leave an edge prone to failure, but lower quality ones seem to struggle to attain the high levels of refinement of the better ones. That's not to say there aren't Jnats too coarse for shaving off, only that Jnats which attain a level of refinement sufficient for shaving aren't necessarily shaving quality stones; whereas coticules seem to universally leave a durable edge suitable for shaving, similar to Thuringians and other well-reputed stones historically used for razors.

Nicely said.
It is funny, my razor has almost a high gloss finish.
I can see myself when I look at the gold leafing. But look at the scratches obove the honed edge, I can not see any scratches when I look at it without a microscope.

Had this awhile. One of the best shaving edges I've ever had. A vintage Les Lat. Posting since Caccia has a similar boxed coti and he was curious.

SliceOfLife said:

Had this awhile. One of the best shaving edges I've ever had. A vintage Les Lat. Posting since Caccia has a similar boxed coti and he was curious.

Click to expand...

Thank you for posting that stone.You are right,same box.Must be a woodworker liked coticules and his boxes survived,and did their job protecting the stones.My stone is split even with bbw.

What a shame. I'm sure it's a good stone, anyway. And the boxes definitely are lookers. On the plus side, you didn't pay half of what I had to pay for mine.

Do you know wood at all? Any idea what the box is made of? It's nice, reminds me a bit of mahogany, but doesn't feel heavy enough.

Here is an unknown stone, it was sold as a BBW. Does someone possibly know this kind of stone?
For comparison, a bright BBW next to it. It was used with oil, I have cleaned it but without boiling, oil will remain in the stone.
One side is quite coarse, this grey side sparkles when wet.
The side with more yellow is very smooth, this side is darkgreen-grey with white-yellowish parts.
Anne-Katrien from Ardennes Coticule said it is not a BBW, but she can not determine the layer.

Sebrazor said:

Here is an unknown stone, it was sold as a BBW. Does someone possibly know this kind of stone?
For comparison, a bright BBW next to it. It was used with oil, I have cleaned it but without boiling, oil will remain in the stone.
One side is quite coarse, this grey side sparkles when wet.
The side with more yellow is very smooth, this side is darkgreen-grey with white-yellowish parts.
Anne-Katrien from Ardennes Coticule said it is not a BBW, but she can not determine the layer.
View attachment 676901View attachment 676902View attachment 676903

Click to expand...

Not really sure on that one here, so it wasnt sold from Ardennes ? Are you sure its any type of stone from Belgium ?

One guess would be a hybrid La Verte / Coticule, which i have to admit i dont really believe in.

Then it might be a Levante stone....

On the third here is an unknown stone i iwn which first let me think about a Type of Coticule, but it isnt...slurry smells really like green peas ;-)

Here the Our Levant:


not wet:


Wet:

caleb31 said:

Click to expand...

Nice bout! How do you like it?

Dcaddo111 said:

Nice bout! How do you like it?

Click to expand...

I love her. So easy to use .
Smooth and polishes with a feedback that is calming to me.

Not really sure on that one here, so it wasnt sold from Ardennes ? Are you sure its any type of stone from Belgium ?

Someone from Leipzig had sold it. I can´t say the origin, seems to be a sandstone. I dulled a small kitchen knife on a ceramic cup and sharpened it with this stone (the knive was very dull). This stone has spectacular speed, the knive was super sharp within one minute. I used the coarse side first for 30 seconds (light brown autoslurry) and then the fine side for 30 seconds (grey abrasion, not typical black). It is a bit strange, I can´t see any typical black swarf. But this stone is very good for knifes. I tried to set a bevel on a straight using water only but that is anything but easy with this stone, the armhair shave test was possible but I needed several attempts. I think with oil it could work much better. From the pics (ca. 60x) I can not tell the grit difference, but it is like 600 to 6000.

fine side wet

fine side dry

coarse side wet

coarse side dry

Got this bout 10 Les Latneuses yesterday. It's approximately 5x3.5.

Wow, the hybrid side looks really consistent for the most part

It is, for the most part. Most of the lines are clean. There's one small spot on the middle left that I had to fill with CA but otherwise it's pretty stable.

Very nice David. I like how the manganese runs through the hybrid side too. Gives it a very nice look.

rideon66 said:

Very nice David. I like how the manganese runs through the hybrid side too. Gives it a very nice look.

Click to expand...

Thanks Tom!

Very cool and big bout.
It crossed my mind, I have not shown my bout 10 from behind. The hole was drilled for a pin, the stone was fixed on a piece of wood. I really like the lapped side of it, the edges are outstanding, even better than with my hard LaVie. As for me, there is no need to lap the back. But interesting, the hybrid has a green hue.

Family photo