Finally my vintage coticule from Greece is here!

man, this took forever to get here but it was worth the weight.This is a pre 1940 coticule that is a natural combo with a Belgian Blue Wetstone on the bottom and a great pan holder box that it came in. the box is pretty rough but the stone is GREAT GREAT GREAT!

Very creamy surface and raise an easy slurry with my les lat stone. It has a middle layer that looks very much like the middle layer of my les lateneus stones.this is a very fast cutter and I decided to test out  another dilucote on the stone after re watching Barts video on how to do the dilucote.

The techniques in the video are much different than in the written instructions and now I see where I was going wrong. In the video he starts diluting after just two laps of 20 ( not 30) and keeps diluting the entire time.

this might be the key to getting sharpening without so much dulling; wisking away more and more "free" garnets and going more the ones embedded in the surface of the stone. we'll see but that's how he does it in the video. No stay on slurry til it cuts arm hair.

So I did that, diluting from just two laps in and back 6-8 laps it was starting to shave arm hair nicely so of course I kept on going. Dulled it. Ack

SO BACK on LIGHT slurry into IMMEDIATE dilution figuring this was what is responsible for sharpening and it worked ; back to more crispy shaving arms. rinsed off blade and went to 10 laps X strokes.

rinsed coticule and went to sets of 3 push strokes on water for very light 8 laps or so.

then cleaned everything and tested leg hair. shaving nicely so

40 laps on water. retested leg hair- better.
20 more laps on water NO pressure, skating over the stone. Love this part the best :))

30 laps on linen . leg hair test better
40 laps on leather. leg hair much better
20 more laps on leather. Done.

we'll see tomorrow.

Also touched up the brown russian with 30 X strokes on Nakayama with tomo slurry. this bout looks like it could be the same stone- just a little greener. love it


SHAVE REPORT:

Double score!!! First off, the new coticule worked GREAT and I got a very very good first pass with the russian red that I re honed( again) on it, using JUST a dilutcote( my own version, which is the second score). When I've gone too far on a coti and it goes from sharpening to dulling on a thickening slurry, all I have to do is  go back a bit to a new  slurry AND IMMEDIATELY START THE DILUTE.
At least that's what worked yesterday.
If it's the diluting slurry that indeed sharpens then that makes sense.

The other score was that I touched up the brown Russian on the Nakayama with the tomo slurry stone and that popped up in keenness as well!  Nice when things work.

Now, enough with the russians and onto my revisors, at last!
 Want to play with the Ozuku next.