Thread: Help with a coticule size please?

Hello All,

Im about too embark on my straight razor journey. I just purchased a Red Imp 132 case, as well as a 133. Im trying to stay away from spending $200 and up for a perfect stone, and I found a la verte thats a bit smaller than reccomended I think? Its 35mm x about 130mm. I found it for a great price. My question is, would it be too narrow, especially considering I'm just starting out.?

Chef, 'Grats on taking the plunge. The little Imp will be a nice razor. 'Good US wedge, which can be really nice to learn with. Keep track of that square point or it'll tutor you. If this makes for your first razor, I would strongly recommend not learning to hone at the same time as you are learning the shave. I DID make that mistake, and there's a reason I'm called pinklather. When learning the shave, you need very good edges. It'll be a while, when learning to hone before your edges are that good. In the mean time, it can be called suffering. Almost everyone will tell you to get a pro quality edge. They're not shilling for money - they don't get any. The pro that does it is making less than minimum wage. They say it 'cause it'll make your learning experience ALOT more enjoyable. If the Imp is shave ready, or not requiring restorative grinding before honing, there are several ways to get free honing. The Coti boys - used to be coticule.be, now artisanshaving.something used to offer free honing. Members reported wonderful edges coming back from Bart.

On stones, the coti usually takes a fair amount more skill to get satisfying results than any synthetic. Some guys get it right away. I didn't get decent coti edges until trying them on over 100 blades. (I honed blade #302 in the last hour). I got shaveable edges, but hardly ones I'd want to live with day in and day out. I'd strongly advocate starting w/ synthetics (norton or Nani). If I recall, the La Verte is a soft stone, which will have issues of its own w/ auto-slurry - the blade stroke raising slurry from the soft surface. (Coti guys - pls. jump in & correct if I'm wrong here). Maybe 'cause of my own suffering, I feel strongly about starting out w/ good edges that are strong on the smoothness attribute. If that imp is in decent shape, I'll hone for just the cost of the bubble mailer and postage. PM me if you'd like.

Above all, enjoy your learning - have fun at it!

It is a bit narrow but you wouldn't have a problem honing a razor on it.

A bit of time spent on it and you'll learn to use it just fine.

Verte coticules produce some really good edges also.

Originally Posted by pinklather

Chef, 'Grats on taking the plunge. The little Imp will be a nice razor. 'Good US wedge, which can be really nice to learn with. Keep track of that square point or it'll tutor you. If this makes for your first razor, I would strongly recommend not learning to hone at the same time as you are learning the shave. I DID make that mistake, and there's a reason I'm called pinklather. When learning the shave, you need very good edges. It'll be a while, when learning to hone before your edges are that good. In the mean time, it can be called suffering. Almost everyone will tell you to get a pro quality edge. They're not shilling for money - they don't get any. The pro that does it is making less than minimum wage. They say it 'cause it'll make your learning experience ALOT more enjoyable. If the Imp is shave ready, or not requiring restorative grinding before honing, there are several ways to get free honing. The Coti boys - used to be coticule.be, now artisanshaving.something used to offer free honing. Members reported wonderful edges coming back from Bart.

On stones, the coti usually takes a fair amount more skill to get satisfying results than any synthetic. Some guys get it right away. I didn't get decent coti edges until trying them on over 100 blades. (I honed blade #302 in the last hour). I got shaveable edges, but hardly ones I'd want to live with day in and day out. I'd strongly advocate starting w/ synthetics (norton or Nani). If I recall, the La Verte is a soft stone, which will have issues of its own w/ auto-slurry - the blade stroke raising slurry from the soft surface. (Coti guys - pls. jump in & correct if I'm wrong here). Maybe 'cause of my own suffering, I feel strongly about starting out w/ good edges that are strong on the smoothness attribute. If that imp is in decent shape, I'll hone for just the cost of the bubble mailer and postage. PM me if you'd like.

Above all, enjoy your learning - have fun at it!

I'm more looking to have a stone that will help me maintain a very sharp, smooth edge, as opposed to actually hone, and set bevels, etc. At least for the time being. I was just hoping to prolong the time in between having to send my razors out..I have a very coarse beard, and even professionally honed shave ready razors have produced some tugging the few times I've used them. Jarrod @ superiorshave suggested that aside.........ah. heck,here's his email response to me:........" hi

It is always possible that a beard's coarseness combined with the thicker angle of incidence of a straight razor's bevels would mean that you're better off using a "shavette" type razor, or the Feather Artist Club system, because these will both tug less (but never have as polished of bevels).

However, I would try to find a "la verte" or "la veinette" coticule, these are the sharpest ones to me for sure, with the verte being my preference between the two. Unfortunately we only have small bouts and more expensive large rectangles; we are all at the mercy of what is coming out of the ground." So do you guys think that'll do?

Thanks for your help,
Basil ..my name is Basil also

Most of my Vertes have been really hard - the one that was softer didn't auto-slurry. The hard ones were slower than other stones but not ridiculously so. The softer one was a bit faster in all regards and none of them were hard to figure out. All produced wickedly keen edges that were very comfy.

Originally Posted by Chefbaze

I'm more looking to have a stone that will help me maintain a very sharp, smooth edge, as opposed to actually hone, and set bevels, etc.

If that is your goal then the size that you mentioned should work fine. My "go to" touch up stone is a 1x5 inch Escher which translates to about 25mm x 120mm. Works great in the hand and would be easy to use as "travel stone" if you got something bigger in the future.

I just picked up a coticule and I really like the edge it produces. I've tried razors finished on several different stones (including an Escher), and the coticule edge is my favorite so far. You shouldn't have any trouble using a coti to do touch ups. Full-blown honing on one is a different matter altogether, but it would be really simple to keep a pro-honed razor shave-ready with a coti that size.

Chef, I'm glad to hear some coti guys weighing in. There's a preference component that comes into play, where some guys skin/beard and honing skills just click w/ the coti. I'm not really one of them, but know there's alot of very happy coti users. 'Glad they're posting here.

You might want to PM Tylerbrycen about having the proverbial 'beard of steel'. When he sent his first blade for honing, it looked like a cross-cut saw blade. I sent him one from my rotation and when it came back after about a week's worth of shaves, the dents in the edge had started. I mention this 'cause I've known guys whose beards just tear up an edge. You might ask Tyler about the paper stropping technique - how it works for him. Weekly touch ups won't wear that much steel, but the paper will wear less.

'Glad the guys are responding and most likely will be very helpful if you do the coti. I'm grateful for each one that helps.

When I was learning I found my smaller hones (barber hone sized) harder to use. Until you have the muscle memory it can be hard keeping the blade flat on narrower stones. That is not to say this will be the same for you, but that was my experience.

For what it's worth I now have a La Verte in my stable that is only 23mm wide, and it does a great job. Especially on warped and smiling blades. If it is for a great price I say grab it. If you have trouble you can always put it away until you get more practice, or sell it and make a few bucks. It is always easy to sell coticules.

Thanks to everyone for all your help. I guess as with anything else, the only way to know for sure is to try out different methods , stones etc. I've been in the beginning stages of wetshaving for 3 months now with a DE, so while it might be AD, RAD,SCAD, and such, I think its more trying everything to see what works for me, I'm sure ill settle into my preferences. I've already gotten rid of about 11 soaps and creams and settled on my goto 3. Same with blades, brushes etc..now its onto seeing what straight razor doodads work for me. So far I've got an NOS Red Imp 133 that I got today, and a hollow Case Imp 132, good start I think.http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthr...p-!?highlight= I guess it can't hurt to buy this 35mm verte coticule, there's also a veinette I'm looking at, similar dimensions. I just don't want to destroy my blades, which is why I'm asking about shapes and sizes..
Also, I'm sure there are coarser beards than mine, but I do know that I used to change mach3 and sensor carts every shave or id get tugging and ingrowns, same with DE blades(feathers)