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Moughton Stone Holder

A couple of months ago I was very kindly given a Moughton Whetstone, which made me rather happy. Especially as it was a funny shape:

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I've always rather liked the boxes or holders people sometimes make for koppa or bouts, cos they look cool. This kind of thing (not my picture):

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And something as beautiful as a Moughton deserves something like that. So here I've sawn the ends off to create two slurry stones, and a main one. the piece of wood I'm going to use is Callitris, a rather beautiful, quite hard, Australian softwood that I quite like working with. I'll be sawing it to a better size later:

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Here after a bit of tidying up, the main stone is 165mm long by 50 - 90mm wide:

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Now the bottom of the main bit of the Moughton looks like this:

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And you can, if you're particularly clever with woodworking, carve the holder to fit that part precisely. But f me is that a lot of intricate work! So I'm not going to do that...

I'm going to chisel or rout the wood to fit the stone quite well, and then I'm going to fill it with epoxy and cast the stone in it. which should create a perfect mould around the bottom. I've not done this before, but it should work. Epoxy won't bond to something that's been oiled or waxed, so if I oil the bottom of the stone I should be able just to lift it out once the epoxy's set.

First though I'm going to seal the stone on the bottom and the sides. This will help with the casting, and also I like to use the Moughton with a bit of a soak, and it might help there too. Two or three coats of clear, oil-based wood varnish will do nicely:

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TBC...
 
Looking good. I hope that the oiled stone and epoxy (filler I hope, not glue) works out for you.

Cool. Just as an alternative, silicone might make a better filler than epoxy. And probably be a bit more shock resistant and protective?


Umm... tbh I was going to use what I normally use, which is clear-setting 5 min Araldite (glue), but certainly open to other suggestions if you reckon something else would be better...?

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The reason I was going to do that is; because I work with it a lot, know how it behaves when cast, and I can colour it easily if I want to. I invented this technique for instance one day while buggering about drinking beer...

Oil the inside of a bottle cap, fill with 5 min epoxy coloured with mica powder:

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Once set they pop out looking like this:

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That's spacer material for a knife handle:

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And here's the little paring knife it was for:

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Five piece set I did with the same method just using blue mica powder instead:

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So yep - if yous reckon something else (silicone? runny long-setting epoxy?) might be better then I shall look into it. But 5 min araldite should do well too I think...
 
And one I'm quite proud of...

I'd used bits of plastic I've cleaned off the beach as spacers before, but someone asked me if I could do one from beach plastic that was sea-green coloured. Problem being that basically all beach plastic is white, cos it's been bleached by the sun &c.

Eventually I found some fishing net tangled up in seaweed, cleaned it up:

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Cast with araldite at the bottom of a shot glass:

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Et voila:

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Well it sounds like the general consensus is investigate other options for the fill - I shall do that. First up though is chiselling the feckin thing out (I do not have a router).
 

Legion

Staff member
Well it sounds like the general consensus is investigate other options for the fill - I shall do that. First up though is chiselling the feckin thing out (I do not have a router).
I'm going to be doing it soon with that Turkish I showed you yesterday. I can tell that thing wants to split again, right down the middle.
 
So did the big bit of wood fit in the vise so I could use a circular saw? Did it f***. Luckily even old and rusted Japanese saws are still ace, so only took a couple of mins.

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Chamfered the edges down to see how it'd look; the piece of wood is thick enough that I can change this if I want, but I think I quite like. You can also see why I like Callitris - this is just off a 40 grit belt and it's already very pretty. Will the big knot in the middle cause me grief? Probably, I expect.

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I'm only going to be putting one of the slurry stones in the holder, as otherwise it'll look stupid like the stone has ears. Probably give the other away or swap it or something, spread the Moughton love. Assuming I don't feck it up, I think this should come out quite nice:

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Off to sharpen the chisels now. I meant to do this last night, but then dropped something on my foot and it hurt, so I had a sit down instead.

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Here FWIW is what 3 coats of regular hardware shop wood varnish looks like for sealing a stone. It basically preserves the exact colours, works just as well as Cashew, dries very quickly, and is very cheap. Got that tip from a guy who sells jnats and has now stopped using Cashew lacquer and moved to this instead. Apparently oil-based is what you want.

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I'm going to be doing it soon with that Turkish I showed you yesterday. I can tell that thing wants to split again, right down the middle.

Oh dear... well that's definitely going to show up my efforts here then!

Good plan though - certainly back in the day people always had them in holders because they can be fragile. Most important though would be; don't let them get too hot, and keep them nicely oiled. If you don't use one for a month or two then give it a little wipe with some oil to stop it drying too much.
 

Legion

Staff member
Did the big bit of wood fit in the vise so I could use a circular saw? Did it f***. Luckily even old and rusted Japanese saws are still ace, so only took a couple of mins.

View attachment 1414909

Chamfered the edges down to see how it'd look; the piece of wood is thick enough that I can change this if I want, but I think I quite like. You can also see why I like Callitris - this is just off a 40 grit belt and it's already very pretty. Will the big knot in the middle cause me grief? Probably, I expect.

View attachment 1414910


I'm only going to be putting one of the slurry stones in the holder, as otherwise it'll look stupid like the stone has ears. Probably give the other away or swap it or something, spread the Moughton love. Assuming I don't feck it up, I think this should come out quite nice:

View attachment 1414911

Off to sharpen the chisels now. I meant to do this last night, but then dropped something on my foot and it hurt, so I had a sit down instead.

View attachment 1414923

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Here FWIW is what 3 coats of regular hardware shop wood varnish looks like for sealing a stone. It basically preserves the exact colours, works just as well as Cashew, dries very quickly, and is very cheap. Got that tip from a guy who sells jnats and has now stopped using Cashew lacquer and moved to this instead. Apparently oil-based is what you want.

View attachment 1414912

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That has to be the coolest looking stone. You could cut little chunks to turn into jewellery.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
I would have used four slabs of timber and cut the stone shape into two (middle) pieces using a jig/band or fret saw. Then glue one cutout piece to the bottom timber and the other to the top timber piece. Little or no chiseling would then be required.

Of course the above would depend on the type of timber used and its grain.
 
I would have used four slabs of timber and cut the stone shape into two (middle) pieces using a jig/band or fret saw. Then glue one cutout piece to the bottom timber and the other to the top timber piece. Little or no chiseling would then be required.

Of course the above would depend on the type of timber used and its grain.

Yes... good point, that would probably be easier wouldn't it. But this way's more fun!

(Plus I don't have a massive amount of suitable wood - in fact this was the only piece I could find. Almost all the wood I have is in long thin bits so I can cut them up for knife handle blanks).
 
That has to be the coolest looking stone. You could cut little chunks to turn into jewellery.

I was going to say you could have the other Moughton slurry stone at some point. But if you're just going to turn it into gaudy trinketry then I shall keep for myself!
 
DAVA-DAVE!!!!

I must say I admire both your enthusiasm, and your deft wordplay.

Perhaps you could start out with the recent Glanrafon stone as your signature accessory? If you can master your 'Lls', your 'Cyms', and your 'Twmffs' then there is probably a rich untapped vein of modern East-Coast-Style Cymraeg rap just waiting to be explored...
 

Legion

Staff member
I must say I admire both your enthusiasm, and your deft wordplay.

Perhaps you could start out with the recent Glanrafon stone as your signature accessory? If you can master your 'Lls', your 'Cyms', and your 'Twmffs' then there is probably a rich untapped vein of modern East-Coast-Style Cymraeg rap just waiting to be explored...
When I was a kid my best friends dad, (he was an English kid), had this song on LP, and for some reason we loved it, played it all the time, and learned the song. To be fair, we also learned every Monty Python record ever made as well.

 
When I was a kid my best friends dad, (he was an English kid), had this song on LP, and for some reason we loved it, played it all the time, and learned the song. To be fair, we also learned every Monty Python record ever made as well.


Excellent!

Did I send you this before? Went viral a few years back of a UK Channel 4 News weather guy, who's also a Welsh language scholar I believe:



(p.s. Thank you for the mention of Monty Python songs... now I have Eric Idle singing that song about the universe stuck in my head.)
 
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