WTB Coticule for Kitchen Knives

[SolidSnake03]

Hey all,

So a coticule is one of the few types of stones I've never used. I'm looking to try one out as a final stone after my Shapton Glass 3000 for some of my home knives. Let me know what you've got and what size it is, thanks!

 

[PalmRoyale]

First of all, what kind of steel do you plan to sharpen with it? My experience is that the harder the steel, the better the edge will be off a coticule.

 

[SolidSnake03]

Thanks for reaching out about that one, I'm planning to sharpen my various gyutos mostly and a nakiri or two. The steels range from white #2 to blue to some powdered metal like sg2 to some stainless like aeb-l.

It's mostly just a new stone to try out on some of my knives, don't have anything I would consider overly soft like some old carbon or stainless.

 

[PalmRoyale]

A coticule will handle those steels with ease. Your best bet would be to contact Ardennes Coticule and ask them for a medium hard stone. They are the only producing mine left and have everything from small standard bouts to large selected bench stones. They're great to work with.

 

[SolidSnake03]

That works for me! Honestly didn't know they were still in production, I remember looking into them a number of years ago but it's been a long time.

 

[PalmRoyale]

And don't worry about standard vs select stones. The only difference is cosmetic. I used to have a standard, butt ugly La Dressante that sharpened like a bat out of hell.

 

[SolidSnake03]

Good to know, I'm not big on asthetics so that sounds good to me.

 

[Smashmasta]

Contact Ardennes directly and see if they've got any 'remarkable' stones. I had a custom cut La Veinette (which it looks like they're now calling them "coticule selected plus" these days), and it is truly one of my all time favorite stones for knives. The spessartine garnets in Belgian stones give such a unique finish. Obviously the La Veinette, as it was a special type and size to begin with, was more expensive than their 'normal' stones. You'd very likely be fine with a Belgian Blue Whetstone (BBW), the famous 'normal' yellow coticule, or the La Pyrenees, which is a combo stone of a BBW and the French Pyrenees stone. They BBW and Pyrenees are lower grit than the coticules, so it sounds like you should focus on the coticules of essentially any variety/type.