Coti>Diamond>Coti

I took a razor that was done on a Coti that was HHT 3 (using thick hair) and did 10 passes with .25 diamond on felt then back to the Coti for 50 x strokes with just water. From there 60 linen, 60 leather.

Now the edge will do HHT 5 with very thin hair.

With taking the edge back to the Coti for 50 passes does this still qualify as a Coti edge?

My goal is to do a full Coti edge to HHT 5 but had to give this a go to see how the edge would react.

Don't sweat the details of the honing sequence.

If the edge is comfortable to shave with, that's all that matters.

I can get a HHT-5 every time I use one of my Charnley Forest hones.......however, the edges are harsher than I like to shave with, so I tone them down on a coticule.

There are some people who can routinely get a HHT-5 off a coticule, but I'm not one of them. Anyway, it's not one of my aims.

When I hone, my aim is to get a smooth-shaving edge that gives me a close shave. The emphasis is on smoothness and comfort - not sharpness. Obviously, a balance has to be struck between sharpness and comfort, and I like to maximize both these aspects.

Still, to answer your question: I'd consider that a coticule edge. Also, you may be able to reach a HHT-5 with just the coticule.

Wid said:

I took a razor that was done on a Coti that was HHT 3 (using thick hair) and did 10 passes with .25 diamond on felt then back to the Coti for 50 x strokes with just water. From there 60 linen, 60 leather.

Now the edge will do HHT 5 with very thin hair.

With taking the edge back to the Coti for 50 passes does this still qualify as a Coti edge?

My goal is to do a full Coti edge to HHT 5 but had to give this a go to see how the edge would react.

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I did this early in the week. Almost the exact same scenario. Except I used .5 diamond. I went back and did 100 passes on my coticule. The shave is always the true test. From my experience it was a coticule edge. Maybe not 100% comparable, but not nearly as harsh as if you just shaved off the diamond paste. I'm sure if I did another 50-100 passes it would improve, but it would probably not be too noticeable. Just keep experimenting.

What you're doing is perfectly fine. Don't feel judged by what others are doing. Do what makes sense to you. (Although, I would personally find it a bit sad for anyone to take a razor that's very well done on a very nice, unique and expensive stone, only to later strop on some commonly available pasted strop. But, y'know, if someone wants to do that, that's their prerogative. )

My only advice is to watch out how you use that felt strop. Felt has a grain, which seems to like to round the edge more on one side than the other.

But wouldn't 50 passes back on the coti negate any rounding a few strokes on felt would produce.

I'm sure I'm not spending enough time with plain water. The stone is a La Veinette which if I'm not mistaken, of course I could be, is slow on just plain water.

Wid said:

But wouldn't 50 passes back on the coti negate any rounding a few strokes on felt would produce.

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Possibly. You'll need to experiment to see how many passes it takes.

Wid said:

I'm sure I'm not spending enough time with plain water. The stone is a La Veinette which if I'm not mistaken, of course I could be, is slow on just plain water.

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La Veinette will vary some, although your first sentence hits the nail on the head. If you look at the stones in the Coticule.be Vault, you'll notice that all the La Veinettes there vary some. Even La Petite Blanche, which I understand to be the most consistent layer, has some variation. Knowing the vein of a stone is really only important for providing a starting point for understanding a stone. The rest is, as a mathematician would put it, "left as an exercise for the reader". There are reasons why La Veinette, LPB, and Les Latneuses are specially priced by Ardennes (the thinness of the layers, speed, low slurry-dulling for LV/LPB, two coticules in one for Les Latneuses, etc), but that is inconsequential if you know your stone. (Okay, having a very fast stone makes it easier to do bevel repair work, and that is a practical reason for a price difference. But faster stones are also typically harder to use.) Learning your stone is very important to getting the most out of it. I don't know if I can emphasize that enough. This may be why some people say that synthetics are easier. They are easier in the sense that the use of a synthetic hone is more methodical. Natural stones are more like driving with a standard transmission.

I got to use the razor today, it had a pretty comfortable edge imo. It sure gave a really good shave. When looking at it under a loupe it looked similar to the other coti edges I have.

Wid said:

I got to use the razor today, it had a pretty comfortable edge imo. It sure gave a really good shave. When looking at it under a loupe it looked similar to the other coti edges I have.

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Glad to hear you had favorable results I do the same thing sometimes with a troublesome razor.

There certainly is a lot of "rules" about honing.
But we should remember that many of those rules are created in the last 5 years on the internet forums.

There is a gazillion of options on strokes, stones, pastes, sprays & what not & what you basically want to do is to put an edge on your razor that you like to shave with.
And you did just that, so you did it right