Coticule Honing Made Easy - Update - Modified Technique for Problematic Stones 

it sure did take me forty hours on and off. but 3 yrs gosh but have to say your the man who gave the great advice and without you i probably would of given up.. So a big thankyou for showing us. and given us all your many yrs of experiences and advice. . without you i doubt some of us would continue to hone so your wonderful advice is a great help. to me specially. it was my friend who mentioned you. not sure if you know him his name is gary from the uk. he does alot of honing for customers all over the uk. . hope your having a great day matt. And thanks again buddy.

Love that positive infectious attitude Dr. Matt and I always learn a lot. Thanks.

A BBW on soapy water has produced for me unbelieveably sharp edges.

Finishing on soapy water and adjusting your pressure are two tricks to getting any problematic coticule to produce incredible edges.

Thanks for showing a pre-strop and post-strop microscope pic. I was wondering when I'd see something like that. I guess stropping is important!

Dr. Matt Thanks for the video's they inspired me to get my own Coticule off of The Superior Shave. I fallowed you method to the letter and got some great results. Again thanks!

Thanks for the time and effort putting these videos together. I just watched all 4. It's especially nice to see evidence for why a technique works. I've never liked honing by "using the force". I just got a coticule and working on a razor I can't get shave comfortable. Everything I've tried still feels and sounds like I'm dragging a cut tin can top across my face and strop. I wish I had seen these before I tried the Unicot method. If my next shave isn't better, I'm going to use your technique.

Great video sir. Never had a personal problem yet with the coticule I have been using but I plan to buy a larger one in the near future. TSS seems like a great store and I have browsed but never bought. I've heard no negative feedback when I have shared your video posts so I believe you are giving excellent info.

Dr Matt you're a legend. You've helped me fix so many honing issues. Love the relentless American energy and drive. Thank you.

Just revisiting your work, wanted to say thanks, I get great edges off my coticules due to your videos. Half my other problem back then was the lack of draw on my stop as it delivered. Once i learned i had to fix that and combined with the water only coticule method, my edges have been amasing. Just bought a flax linen strop, looking forward to adding that to the routine. Picked up a 10K super stone also to try after the coticule, looking forward to seeing how that edge reactes with my face. But definitely, my coticule edges put a smile on my face due to your work! Thanks man

Sorry - this is gonna be a long 'reply'....lol. Finally got a chance to watch this..nice work Matt. Coupla things, I've never been big on circles, I've never enjoyed the scratch pattern all that much. What you're showing in the micro pix is something I've been looking at since I got my BH-2, and it is eye opening. One thing though - to proof the 'modified' approach, it would have been good to go back to the same stone using circles and do another series of images. Theoretically - if your adjustment was the source of the success, then using circles on the Coticule the second time around would show the same messed up bevel/edge seen in the first pix. Sometimes you make an adjustment and you get a positive return but it can be a false-positive. With Coticules, especially those that have been lapped aggresively and not dressed down correctly - I see a lot of fracturing at the edge on the first several razors I hone on them. I have to assume that's from garnets that have been 'shattered' by a DMT or whatever. It's easy to imagine a Mohs 9 crystal with a highly irregular shape tearing up a polished carbon steel blade viciously. So, if you rule that out you'd be one step closer to 'proving' that the adjustment is the reason for the success. Generally - I find that it takes a good bit of work to dress down a DMT lapped Coti - in my last Coti video you'll see me putting the finishing touches on the working surface right before honing. If I was trying to achieve that same highly refined working surface by just honing - I'd probably have to go a dozen or so razors to get there. Another issue to work on ruling out is the state of the steel before, during and after the preliminary work. For example - someone sets a bevel on a DMT (are you seeing a common denominator here?) the scratches are usually pretty freakin' intense and way difficult to get out. All you need is to leave, say - 10% of them hanging around to have a full blown catastrophic failure later on. It's very difficult to realize just how much work it takes to remove all of those types of striations. I don't know if your scope can do reflected Dark Field or not; mine does and that kind of viewing reveals everything. All the scratches you think you took out... well, maybe not. Lol. Combine the two issues above and you have a ton of fodder for the 'Coticules don't make sharp edges' crowd. Oh - btw - you can get those horizonal scratches from any stone. Not just Cotis. But with Cotis, the round-ish garnets seem to exacerbate the issue somewhat.You wouild think that an elongaged Alundum particle might be harsher. Well - friability comes into play here, but that's another topic. As for the dimension of the garnets, well - technically, the size would matter to some degree, but you'd be very hard pressed to prove who's Coti has what size garnets and how many of them. It's my believe that the bigger part of the story is in the softness of the stone and it;s ability to refresh the slurry on its own. Since the slurry doesn't break down, the particle sizes are always going to be the same. So - it has to be 1 of two things; 1 - the amount of particles in the slurry, and pressure. IIRC - generally speaking, with normal use, only the top 15% of the Spessartine Garnet xl scores the steel, so you're never getting to the widest dimension unless you're really digging in. Pressure, pressure, pressure. Well - anyway, when you emailed me about the horizontal scratch marks I knew what you were on to and I had faith that you'd figure it out.....everyone has to find their own way of course. The photo of the edge off the French Special stone on my site shows a bit of what you were talking about in this new video of yours. The edge off the French Stone was a touch up after a nice Coticule edge was set on it, and it was done using - guess what? Yep - Circles.

Good stuff Matt. I've had one of Keith's vintage fire hose strops for a couple of months now and I love it. I haven't ventured into the Coti world yet but still found it interesting. Can't wait to see this new scope. Also, I can also attest to The Superior Shave as being a great company to work with. Great prices and fast shipping. Enjoyed this.

Dr matt. Thank you for your honesty. Not all coticules work fine for razors and a lot of coticule users develop tricks to compensate...such as beeswax, soap, OIL etc. These are all ways to fill the substrate on the hone just like you said. My best advice for anyone is to contact Ardenne directly and ask for a razor coticule. They will get you a good and fine one for razors.

These are very interesting observations. Thanks for sharing the knowledge

Another informative video. Great job Dr. Matt. Keep the videos coming.

I recently bought a coticule and I love it

hi dr matt . guess what i finally got my razor to work on a cotucule. and the damn thing looks amazing under a microscope. it was a pain in the arse it was driving me round the bend i wanted to physically smash the bloody stone to bits but with a bit if perseverance i got it. wow what a difference. got the sticky movement you was mentioning and you was bang on with running under water & that sticky movement . Thanks alot matt. So glad i got what you was trying to explain. only took me around 40 hours practice but your method works great thanks mate bloody brilliant. Woohoo trying my shave ready vintage kropp razor that ive honed tonight . i let you know how it shaves. 👌👌👌👌

Amazing DR Matt!!! Subscribed

Don't have a coticule yet, but I will probably get one as soon as I have the money. Thanks for the video it quite interesting.

The best of the best! Thanks for this Matt! Helped me a lot with my coti edges!

Hello Dr Matt. Great video. I sharpen mostly knives but I'm also a great fan of microscope for sharpening. In this case images from the blade alone were enough to solve the issue but you can also get a lot of interesting information with stone microscopy. Sideways illumination helps to see stone topography, a simple cellphone light makes a huge difference. I had many surprises with this technique and would be interesting to see what you make of it.

Great info backed with scientific evidence. Subscribed!

This is an excellent topic, and I put it to test myself, when I sharpened my SR on my coticule. Everything went well, however, once I put the razor under the microscope, the same horizontal lines appeared on my razor alongside the edge. Where the heck did they came from? What did I do? then I remembered when I finished sharpening my razor, I wiped off the water with paper towel. And I did it on a left to right motion horizontally, as everybody is doing it. So I took a toilet paper which is plain, and folded it, then I started to sharpen the razor on the toilet paper about 5 passes...guess what? The horizontal lines were all gone! After watching the pictures on the video, I bet the guy wiped off his razor the same way I did....probably with cloth, and all those little horizontal lines appeared alongside the edge came from that cloth he was wiping his razor with. But try to wipe off the razor from spine to edge, instead of heel to toe, and you will see all those horizontal lines magically disappear .....

I love your scientific methodology. You need to test 20 differend blades on each stone, to assess the stone.

What fantastic videos!!! Thank you

Hahaha! I knew you had keiths strops! I have his firehose strop. Love of my life. And i have been having issues with my coti. I have one from jared and one from etzy. I will have to try this and just stop circles on the coticule. So kill the edge on an 8k. Bring it back. Strop then coticule then strop again. I'll try bud.

Every forging is as different as the vast array of available stones. There are blades that may love your circles on that conical stone.

Ok, I’d like to touch on going back & forth between finishing stones and linen as a separate topic for a moment. I’ve often found that if I finish a honing sequence (regardless of choice of hones) my first shave isn’t as smooth as let’s say shave #2 or 3. I do both pre & post shave stropping on linen & leather between shaves mind you. So with this in mind I’ve been exploring going back and forth between my last stone and linen repeatedly to see if the edge gets that “3rd shave in” level of smoothness. I’ll do around 4-7 passes on linen & 4-7 back on the finishing stone and keep going back & forth until I sense that I’m no longer progressing the edge. I’ve been finding that the resulting edge seems to have a level of Smoothness & keenness that I really don’t get by going from a good finisher to a single stropping cycle even if I spend a fair amount of time stropping. I was wondering if you’ve made similar observations in regards to bouncing back & forth between using a few strokes on a finishing stone & a few strokes stropping until the edge really gets dialed in.

Love the vintage linen. Even better are the treated vintage or the hard linens that come on old japanese strops that you can find NOS (when the linen is white and not brown). Coticule and arkansas stones both step up a lot with a linen, plus you can use it to stretch an edge out several hundred shaves between honing and without resorting to pastes or anything, so the once an eon honing can be a couple of minutes only with the finish stone. Kind of a buzz kill for the forum fascination with honing all the time, but really puts the kibosh on wear on a razor that you adore and really want to stretch out until you've stroked out. Love the video, love the discussion of real information, and the investigation of a problem. I've also had issues with a large % of cotis. I think they're overpriced, but you can figure out how to make something of most stones. Next thing coming out is a drag honing technique on a washita (that someone on SRP dug out of an old state of arkansas text). One stone, set the bevel, drag the razor backwards and you get a very coticule feeling edge, except maybe closer. Works because the washita cuts via pores in the stone rather than particles sticking up.

I'm having trouble with my coticule too, a really nice stone, maybe ill.need.to smooth surface with a finer grit stone or plate. Still not get good results on the coticule.

Lol. he'll sell out of those strops now.I have one and they are great indeed !

8K to coti not traditional? I don't have a Coticule yet but I plan to get one. I will be trying this just to make sure I know what I'm trying to get with a full Coti progression, but just to play it safe I'll probably go to the Coti after my SG 20k!

As always, great job buddy, hard not like you you know,,, I don't who this Jarred is but if he doesn't like then there's something wrong with him. And one more thing, you making these videos with a wealth of information about sharpening straight razor has more than it's fair share of value and no one would fault you for make money off of it, value is worth it's weight in gold because more people are interested in making a quick buck for throw away items than offering quality at a premium price with guarantees like you have.

Quick question..now that you have seen some evidence of damage from the circles (on a Coticule).Do you still use circles on Coticules?Or do you a avoid them now?

Something that might be cool to test out would be see what difference if any the slurry stone makes when used to just dress the stone. Could that possibly help alleviate some of those deeper gouges in the surface? After the stone has been flattened is there a point of diminishing returns when it comes to dressing the stone with either a diamond plate progression, or W/D Sandpaper or slurry stones etc... Or after a few passes, does it even make a difference? Love the videos, they have been very helpful!!!

Dr. Matt, this video was even better the second time! Terrific slides and astute observations on your part. Keith is a terrific source, as well. How many strokes are you recommending on the 8K stone prior to going to the coticule? Thanks for all you do. Warm regards.

I thought the garnet stones were quality controlled to be of a given size with the substrate?

also matt im pretty ammoyed with myself. ive just cleaned up and restored my first vintage razor to a high shine and then honed it. and then used a antiseptic TCP .and it tarnished the metal . i cant believe it. after all the hours of work cleaning it up removing the rust spots and so on. it now looks like i didnt even bother to restore it. Anyway my question is have you ever come across this before . And if so is there a simple way of removing the tarnish without all the hard work again. thanks in advance

you know what is next,you need to do a video on the Belgian Blue Whetstone . :)

Interesting Matt! So does doing the circles on synthetics and jnats give those same problems?

Drmatt. Just a thought. So i have a 400 atoma. Always use it to lap stones. Afterwards sometimes for my jnats or coticules I will use 1200 sand paper and it will make the surface glassy. Does it matter at all between surfaces when finishing a razor? A surface lapped with a lower grit compared to a surface lapped with higher grit? Differences in speed and end result?

I would like to see the 8k edge vs the coticule x stroke only edge and see if its worse or better.

Do u prefer a coticule edge over a jnat edge?

Hey, just a couple of questions/remarks from my geologist's eyes: Garnets are isometric crystals, so, if not disturbed, they tend to form dodecaherdrons or similar "sphere-like" shapes. Their grain size should therefore not be too much of an issue as they probably either present very smooth surface if just sticking out of the matrix, or act as mini ball bearings when in a slurry. Could the issue with these stones be they were lapped or slurried with agressive materials, like SiC, diamond or the like? These will tear the garnets to pieces creating all kind of irregular, shard-like material on the surface, making them able to tear chunks of the edge rather than smoothly roll under it. These could remain problematic for as long as the surface of the stone has not been completely renewed, which could be a while.... Just an idea....

Dr. Matt when I kill the edge on the 8k do I have to go back to the 4k and work back up to the 8k or just kill the edge on 8k and begin honing on the 8k?

Thanks Matt.........where to order the linen strop please.

This video caused me to order a metallurgical microscope. Presumably, I can send you the invoice? It's certainly your fault!

Has anyone suggested looking at the stone and strops under the microscope?

So why circle anyway? If x works on all stones not just prob line one's? What's the state g e of circles?

Do you use your linen strop and leather strop in progression or just one or the other?

Lolz I go from and 800 grit king stone straight to a Arkansas hard what is a good in between the hard and 800 and also the step up from a Arkansas hard black or translucent? Also what the step up from those in synthetic

Etsy has a few guys selling coticles Amazon had jade stones for cheap too. For 50 Canadian pesos I bought one of these 2”x8” jade stones. I had a credit card sized one before and I’ve literally honed hundreds of blades on it and it just won’t cup. So I ended up buying another of those jade stones and epoxy them together so I can run a single pass with my straight razors. Theses a guy out of Colorado quarrying and selling both the jade and jasper stones and for what I did for 100 total dollars delivered he wants over 500 for. And he’s getting it.

I am confused about coticule stones Are they the same as the Japanese wetstones?

Have you any pic of the coticles to see the garnet particles? Would email you if I could find your email address. Thanx in advance.

6:54 that's what mine looked like at 100x jewelers loop. And now with better technique looks like the picture before that at 100x I'm curious how mine looks like right now at 900x? Lolz That one way to check your edge.

Cant get mine to stick at all... Certified coticule form a trusted site Unicot edge Wont shave...it doesnt look like it takes of metal at all...

Those firehose strops are no joke! I gotta stick with my Arkansas stones though ... I never need to go beyond 2 passes, I don’t even feel the blade, 0 aftershave burn, & my face is still numb 15 minutes later 😳

I Suppose any garnet lifted up from the sub straight that does not break down will act like a foreign body to the finer part of the sub straight, We have known for years in the polishing industries if a foreign particle gets on to the final polished object that is bigger than the smaller grain you place on the mop` there will be visible signs of it being there, i.e scratchiest or grooves, on the work piece. The garnets on a Belgian cotncule were to take down the metal finer than a lower grade stone` but you don`t want them garnets interfering with the finals keen edge, I would like to ask ` There are different visible signs on Belgian cotncules more noticeable than others out there ,like the garnets` You could clearly see on some stones they have loads more garnets then some others, So would this make the stone harder and a fast cutter but leave more scratches, or a harder stone is due to the sub straight that holds the garnets,? Love to here your thoughts on this,

+drmatt357 - 12:06 is an appeal to traditional. The 8k's finer than the 5k and hence would feel better on your face when you shave. Like I wouldn't have never guessed feelings would get involved with honing! 😆

For your own use what do you mainly use as a finishing stone?

Man, u should make money on this shit

What do you think about this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-WcxgvywdgRw.html. This guy is stropping only 10 passes or not at all.

Dr. Matt, I'd like to invite you and anyone else interested to watch my new video that was inspired by your video here and your exchange with Keith in the comment section. Just go to my channel and select the video titled, Bench testing a Le Grise coticule. Thanks again

I don't know why you are so excited about thesuperiorshave, my experience was horrible, the stone was a piece of crap, customer service was the worse ever had, rude and offensive. I would never speak with this person again. It is just a waste of money to use their stones.