One stone hone duel: Jnat Vs Coti

I honed another of my 5//8 Russian blades this afternoon on the Oozuku using basically the same recipe that has been so successful the last few days but throwing one little change into the mix; using my Chu Nagura Botan stone as the lead off slurry instead of the soft uchigumori.

One reason is that I only have two small pieces of soft uchi whereas I have a huge chunk of Chu Nagura and it's easy to get. I'm sure more than one botan will work as the lead off  but I thought now was  a good time to experiment as well.

It worked like a charm and built tons of creamy slurry very fast and basically performed just as the soft uchi as far as speed and cutting ability.
5 sets of 30 circles and half strokes refreshing the slurry twice.The Chu nagura always dries up fast so I had to keep adding water to keep the  mud moist :))

It gives a sandblasted, polished look to the bevel almost immediately. I love this look.It was shaving arm hair easily but I did another 15 X strokes just for fun. Keener still
Onto hard uchi slurry and 30 push strokes in sets of 5 then 15 X stroke, trying to stay with the recipe and see if it really works.
It does :))

Then just water for 50 X strokes. tests perfect 35 linen and 50 leather. I know how this will shave tomorrow and this has been one of my harder blades to get an edge on.

This is a picture of the razor when I was using tape on it to try to get any kind of edge that would shave.It has been overhoned at the toe but I haven't yet tried to even it out with the 600 grit chosera. But I know it will shave like butter tomorrow.

BUT, I still haven't figured out the damn coticule yet, except with the unicot with tape and that's not really figuring it out. Kind of like using pasted strops or diamond spray. Not enough skill in that for me.
So I decided to do another kind of one stone hone, the dilucot and see if I could figure it out with the coti.

I chose my Vintage 6 x 1.5 combo coti and another no date Russian 5/8", as I wanted to use the BBW side to start until it shaves arm hair. It's technically part of the coti so why not.The slurry works fast and doesn't dull so I figured  I decided to start there and the vintage coti has a nice bbw side.

Lapped it with the DMT 325 and brough up slurry with the hybrid side of a les latenuese bout. It's so hard all the slurry would be BBW.

Same technique:
30 rep circles, refreshing slurry as needed.
about 5 sets and shaving arm hair like a champ. LOVE the BBW!

Then les lat bout slurry on coti side. very light
sets of 15 half strokes and it starts cutting immediately.
3 sets and start dilute as I felt necessary.I read that if you dilute too fast you know as feel the lose of abrasive power and that's what I was looking for. Plus it was still turning gray with swarf so it was still sharpening.

Onto X strokes and diluting every 5 reps. rinse blade and another 5.

Then 50 laps on pure water. Tests are great.

35 on linen 55 on leather. tests looks excellent.

The duel is on in the morning,lol.

SHAVE REPORT:


And the winner is: A TIE! wouldn't have thunk this.But the real winner is the One Stone Hone; and me, because it looks like I have figured out how to hone just as sharp and smooth on one coticule as I can on one Jnat.
I did the first side of my face with the  Black Russian( coti honed) and it was excellent smooth and silky and this blade is not the best. Even the chin stubble came off effortlessly, Then the other side with the White Russian and it was very good as well, although the geometry of the blade isn't perfect either( never has been). I could have gotten away with one pass but did another for fun, again.


As to the coticule I think starting on the BBW is a great idea as it always gets the edge sharp with no problem with dulling, Going then to the yellow side and an immediate dilute works great as well. The real key to the coti is learning how slow or fast to dilute given the specific coticule and how fast or slow it cuts.


The vintage coticule I THINK is a La petite Blanche and it's a fast cutter.Also good to know the chu nagura works on the Jnat as a starting point  slurry.

Good news all around.