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ethompson said:
Yes, 4th from left on top gets me every time, I neeeeeed the “iromono” coti hahaha
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I stumbled across something interesting about that stone recently. It's not actually from La Grosse Blanche - the vein that's known to darken in sunlight - like I originally thought. It's clearly the same as these, from a vein at Regne called 'La Vielle Rouge', so it's that colour all the way through:

https://razorlovestones.wordpress.com/sharpening-stones/belgian-stones/cotiviellerouge1/
 
ethompson said:
Yes, 4th from left on top gets me every time, I neeeeeed the “iromono” coti hahaha
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You reminded me to dig this one out yesterday for a proper in-depth look at it. I'd used it a handful of times before, but originally I'd been a bit precious about not wanting to wear away the 'tan'. Seeing as it's not that though, no reason not to put it through its paces more extensively, like I do with most stones when I get them...

This is another very fast Coti, almost but not quite as quick as the recent one:

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But here on the Vielle Rouge 'Iromono' it doesn't surprise me as much because it's also extremely coarse; probably the coarsest Coti I've had, the BBW it's glued to is a fair bit finer. Very bitey, bordering on ragged, knife edges because it was so difficult to cleanly deburr on.

You see how wavy the paper towel cut is there? That's something I see a bit on very toothy edges, particularly from cotis. The knife is sharp enough to cut though it, but it's not the really effortless drop you see in some of my vids. As the knife goes through - the half of the sheet that you're not holding begins to fall away, and if the edge is extremely aggressive it continues to dig in to it during that. It's cutting straight downwards in real 3d terms, but because the towel is falling away at the same time - the resulting cut is wavy. Higher finishes produce straighter cuts because they go through more easily and don't dig in so much.

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Tried it on a razor too and it was nowhere near finishing level, not even playing the same game. I wouldn't put the finish level much beyond 2 or 3k. Quite even but very noticeable scratch pattern on the kiridashi here:




A peculiar stone, good for hyper aggressive knife edges, but objectively probably not the 'best' Coticule in the world. 'Tis one of the prettiest though. :)

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ian said:
Man! First time trying out a full size coti. That’s a good edge, and such a pleasure to use.

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Love the gradual transition between different types of stones

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Very nice Ian! You probably know, but that's La Grise btw.

I've seen a couple of people say that recent LaG natural combis looking like that from AC have been pretty impressive. They're clearly quarrying a very good vein of it atm.
 
At the risk of further alienating my friend @aecadiz; I logged onto ebay at the weekend and this popped up, about to end, and without a single bid on it. The seller didn't know what it was, so perhaps wasn't coming up in people's searches or notifications.

Lovely thick, old boat-shaped coti, and pure as the driven snow, in a very nice carved-to-fit box. 8.5 x 1.75-1.25"

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This is another blazingly fast one, not dissimilar to the beautiful paddle stone I got recently, these are two of my three favourite cotis I've had.

It's nothing people won't already know, but I've done a bit of talking in the video below. Just because the last time I made a one showing the speed of a coti with a kiridashi; some berk on youtube asked what I was doing, ignored the answer, and instead decided to try to pick a fight about something entirely unrelated. Cos that's what you do on the internet.

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cotedupy said:
Very nice Ian! You probably know, but that's La Grise btw.

I've seen a couple of people say that recent LaG natural combis looking like that from AC have been pretty impressive. They're clearly quarrying a very good vein of it atm.
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Awesome, I didn’t know. La Grise sounds like a poppin’ vein!

I basically know nothing about rocks.
 
Got my first coticule and BBW, they arrived a few days ago from Ardennes-Coticule. A 'bout 10' coticule from La Veinette, and a 250mmx80mm BBW. Rob was a pleasure to deal with. Can't wait to use them! Not sure how the shape of the coticule will work out, but it cost a lot less than a full sized bench stone so figured I would give it a try. The spots on the BBW in the pics are just little rain drops.
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Beerzebub said:
Got my first coticule and BBW, they arrived a few days ago from Ardennes-Coticule. A 'bout 10' coticule from La Veinette, and a 250mmx80mm BBW. Rob was a pleasure to deal with. Can't wait to use them! Not sure how the shape of the coticule will work out, but it cost a lot less than a full sized bench stone so figured I would give it a try. The spots on the BBW in the pics are just little rain drops.View attachment 234770View attachment 234771
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Coti layer is 10 mm
 
Ok so @ethompson keeps costing me money

Ive been coticurious for a while, so I did what many have suggested and just emailed Rob and asked what he had that would be particularly good for my application (hard simple carbons, of course) and Ive now got my first one incoming. Actually, as it happens, the stone he suggested also has a BBW side so even though I wasnt looking for one, now I get to try both out at once. LPB layer on this stone. I was originally looking at the La Veinette but the small sizes and softness were kind of putting me off, so this seemed maybe more what I would be looking for.

Will obviously be giving it a try when it arrives and will update with my findings.

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I got the left coti from Sharpening Supplies and the two right from Ardennes-Coticule, the smaller as a slurry stone. The middle AC stone feels much more creamy, releases more slurry, and cuts faster than the SS pinkish one, I've been extremely pleased with the refined tooth it puts on my knives so far.

The pinkie feels harder, doesn't release much slurry and doesn't cut particularly fast either. I may need to lap it a touch, as I used it to put a nice finish edge on an S30V pocket knife and a crappy stainless airbnb knife while out of town (didn't have a better option) I liked it then but didn't have anything to compare to and noticed it was more skatey than the AC ones next to it when sharpening aogami/shirogami at home recently.

Curious if the folks here know any more about them/if that pinkish color signifies anything more than natural variation of color.



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SwampDonkey said:
I got the left coti from Sharpening Supplies and the two right from Ardennes-Coticule, the smaller as a slurry stone. The middle AC stone feels much more creamy, releases more slurry, and cuts faster than the SS pinkish one, I've been extremely pleased with the refined tooth it puts on my knives so far.

The pinkie feels harder, doesn't release much slurry and doesn't cut particularly fast either. I may need to lap it a touch, as I used it to put a nice finish edge on an S30V pocket knife and a crappy stainless airbnb knife while out of town (didn't have a better option) I liked it then but didn't have anything to compare to and noticed it was more skatey than the AC ones next to it when sharpening aogami/shirogami at home recently.

Curious if the folks here know any more about them/if that pinkish color signifies anything more than natural variation of color.



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Color could help indicate which vein. Is the pinkish one slate backed? You could try a thick slurry made with a diamond. Or use it as a base since it's harder (not sure how much) with a different slurry stone that's softer and fast cutting.

Or it may just be a dud...
 
Skylar303 said:
Color could help indicate which vein. Is the pinkish one slate backed? You could try a thick slurry made with a diamond. Or use it as a base since it's harder (not sure how much) with a different slurry stone that's softer and fast cutting.

Or it may just be a dud...
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Yeah all 3 are slate-backed. I originally used a BBW as slurry stone with it which was nice, then recently used the AC small slurry stone but it seemed all that slurry just came from the creamy white slurry stone. It wasn't generating a whole lot more as I sharpened like the big AC coti.

I think diamond will be my next move, maybe it's just glazed. I've also got several nagura stones that came with my Chosera 800+3k...is there any reason I should avoid mixing synthetic and natural stones like that?
 
Ah, so if you used BBW as a slurry the edge mostly was probably from that rather than the base stone. Since the pink one is hard when using other slurry stones it won't kick up much of that base stone and same when using it solo. So if you really want to see the pink edge it gives either raw with water which doesn't seem feasible or diamond, the things in a coti shouldn't cause diamonds to break, it's when you use a cheap plate or have loose diamonds that you tend to have problems.

It could be glazed I can see metal embedded in the surface. Although cotis aren't supposed to be prone to glazing since a majority of the stone is talc. (At least with the white/yellow ones, I'm sure hybrids have a more variation in make up)

If you don't have a diamond, you could try using a synth to kick up the base stone, but same applies when you tried the AC slurry. If the synths softer, the slurry with be a majority synth.

The only thing I can think of is grit contamination. And the slurry reasons above. For using a synth with a natural. And I suppose the old why wouldn't you just get a 8k synth argument. But defeats the point of trying to go natural.
 
Skylar303 said:
Ah, so if you used BBW as a slurry the edge mostly was probably from that rather than the base stone. Since the pink one is hard when using other slurry stones it won't kick up much of that base stone and same when using it solo. So if you really want to see the pink edge it gives either raw with water which doesn't seem feasible or diamond, the things in a coti shouldn't cause diamonds to break, it's when you use a cheap plate or have loose diamonds that you tend to have problems.

It could be glazed I can see metal embedded in the surface. Although cotis aren't supposed to be prone to glazing since a majority of the stone is talc. (At least with the white/yellow ones, I'm sure hybrids have a more variation in make up)

If you don't have a diamond, you could try using a synth to kick up the base stone, but same applies when you tried the AC slurry. If the synths softer, the slurry with be a majority synth.

The only thing I can think of is grit contamination. And the slurry reasons above. For using a synth with a natural. And I suppose the old why wouldn't you just get a 8k synth argument. But defeats the point of trying to go natural.
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Thanks for the insight. I'll hit it with the diamond and see what happens
 
Still waiting over here. Package has hit customs but EVERYTHING seems to be taking ages atm.

Oh well, just building excitement I guess. I really want to know how the two sides compare to JNats for kitchen knives.
 
I splurged a bit on the bay for this 7" x 1 1/2" glued combo. It's easily my finest coti, it's on the hard side.
Can anyone tell me about the La Rose brand, when, what layer ect? It has the bottom half of the box but not the top. Regretfully the stamp isn't going to survive me.

 
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