Hone ID?

[ambiguous]

I was just wondering if anybody might have any thoughts on the identity of these hones, they are both extremely fine and produce comfortable shaving edges, But I am unsure on the ID.

The first one is brown, it slurries and behaves a lot like a thuri, but the slurry colour is a coffee brown.

The next I believe is a purple slate, it has dark red bands within it and dark grey, slightly reflective veins running through it. I was thinking French origin?

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated- John.




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[SliceOfLife]

Back and sides and details on the first one? Second is a purple slate... Very hard to ID.

 

[fatwade]

The second one is as mentioned from Ian a purple UK / Welsh slate. They generally appear with those flashy lines and sometimes depending on geological situation appear with green blotches or oval spots. Iam very concerned they come from UK, got 5 now going thru my hands all were from UK.

 

[eKretz]

Where did the brown one come from? I've found a very similar stone in the wild - it looks like it's the same stuff - that I use now and again, not sure what type of rock it is though. It doesn't appear to be a sandstone and there are some sort of flaky areas that are much lighter in color, almost translucent where they're thin. It's a very fine stone and gives a crisp edge. Fairly hard but not Ark-like in hardness. Slurry is cafe au lait colored like that in the OP.

 

[ambiguous]

Sorry for the delay in my reply. I really appreciate the input from you guys, I didn't realise the welsh slates were figured like that, I have had a few of known origin and never seen that.

The first stone came from a car boot sale in Yorkshire, the back and sides aren't lapped, there isn't any blatant change in texture/appearance, no layers to see.

eKretz, the stone sounds similar to yours, it is definitely not sandstone and the description sounds similar, however I wouldn't describe it as particularly hard, quite a bit softer than the moughton whetstone I'm lapping at the moment, probably similar to thuri in that respect to be honest (but I lapped it a long while ago so I could be wrong). It could be the same stuff as yours, it certainly produces nice results at any rate.

Regards- John.

 

[eKretz]

My stone is a bit harder than an average Thuri, but not too much more. It would probably be about the same hardness as the harder Thuris I've used. I don't have a Moughton (but wish I did!) so that reference doesn't really help me.

 

[ambiguous]

moughton is a bit of a poor reference! I will give it a bit of a lap later just to gauge it again. Where did you actually source yours from?

 

[eKretz]

I dug it up here in good old Indiana USA - discovered the raw stone about a foot down near a kettle (glacially formed) lake. Cut it and flattened it into about a 2.5" x 6.5" size for razor use.