What's new

Now that this listing is over..

Ok, speed was definitely the level of polish. I took it to 600 w/d and it's quite slow now. Slurry does look like Coti/BBW under magnification for what it's worth. Slurry is definitely an offwhite with only the barest hint of red, and no purple, though.
 

Attachments

  • 20170225_134631.jpg
    20170225_134631.jpg
    482.6 KB · Views: 17
  • 20170225_134642.jpg
    20170225_134642.jpg
    635.3 KB · Views: 17
  • 20170225_135945.jpg
    20170225_135945.jpg
    214.5 KB · Views: 17
Looks a lot like an Apache red from the eBay photos. Any guess as to the age of the box? Sometimes I find that helpful in narrowing down hone types if we are to assume the box is original to the mining period.
 
Yeah the behavior made me think a freakish colored turkey... But once I smoothed it It doesn't seem to have the novaculite bite. In truth it's being kind of a puzzle. I'm hoping to spend some time with it tomorrow and figure it out a bit. So far it seems to be so slow and fine that I won't like it much for razors, except on heavy grinds with extra hard steel. It definitely seems likely to leave an edge overly fine, the way some ultra-hard jnats can. But a few more razors and some knife use should give me more insight. Until a knife hits it, I can't rule out novaculite even.

Box looks over 50 years but probably under 100
 
That was a 14.25* Razor. Here's a 15.2* one. Edge looks much sturdier. Should be a telling shave.
 

Attachments

  • 20170226_211829.jpg
    20170226_211829.jpg
    196.8 KB · Views: 11
Mysterious stones can be good fun or real disappointments. That paddle with the hexagon I got not long ago is an awesome rock, but I have a lot of blah mystery rocks as well.
 
Last edited:
I still haven't learned much about this as a razor stone. The first shave was okay but not as good as expected. Second shave I dropped my Razor and cut myself. Sharpened a new eBay special for today's shave, and the edge crumbled the instant it touched my beard. I'm going to be taking the stone home with me to maybe figure it out with razors over the next day or two. But I did sharpen up a 40-degree grind mercer santoku at work, and that knife coming off the stone shaves arm hair about as well as a razor does off 8K. So it's a pretty insanely sharp edge left on knives. And the feedback for knives is somewhat reminiscent of a turkey Stone or a very buttery soft Arkansas. Were it harder I would suspect a variety of Novaculite, perhaps an unusually fine turkey Stone. But the hardness testing seems to suggest that it was too soft, although it behaves like an extremely hard Stone. Regardless of what it is I think it will become a knife Stone rather than a razor stone for me unless it is absolutely amazing for razors. The edge off of it with X Chromo 15 is that impressive.
 
Hair squeegee achieved. Took it home, took a known good razor to it with lather (have a small setup at home that uses lather or water vs oil or water of my old setup)... And shave went incredibly. Full coti "won't cut skin" ease and comfort, with the level of closeness on the xtg pass that makes the ATG pass feel silly. The whole shave had the sensation of wiping off a dipilitory cream... Couldn't tell there was an edge there, but the hair vanished. Duration will be a day or two to determine, but I'm guessing we're looking at 30+ hours. Still no idea what this stone is, but damn I like it.
 
Hair squeegee achieved. Took it home, took a known good razor to it with lather (have a small setup at home that uses lather or water vs oil or water of my old setup)... And shave went incredibly. Full coti "won't cut skin" ease and comfort, with the level of closeness on the xtg pass that makes the ATG pass feel silly. The whole shave had the sensation of wiping off a dipilitory cream... Couldn't tell there was an edge there, but the hair vanished. Duration will be a day or two to determine, but I'm guessing we're looking at 30+ hours. Still no idea what this stone is, but damn I like it.

Very intriguing stuff! Hopefully it continues to be a good one!
 
Top Bottom