Now we've all fallen for this in the past, but I'm just going to put it out there in case it saves anyone else any unnecessary both in the future:
Saw marks are easily the stupidest way to try to identify a stone.
The reason is because once stone saws became automated everybody probably used the pretty much the same kind of thing, the reason that saw marks on different stones were different isn't because the saws were different. Here are six stones, all cut by the same person, on the same machine, on the same day (I saw him saw them with mine own eyes):
Admittedly you can have more than one saw blade on a machine, but that's neither here nor there, these stones were all cut with the same blade. The reason the marks are different depends on other things: How much you raise or lower the blade, which will depend on the depth of the stone. How fast you put the stone through it, which will depend on the person using it and what they think the stone can take in terms of softness/hardness. And how many passes you do, which will also depend on the person doing it, and what they think about the depth. It could all just depend on how hungover someone is on a particular day.
As you can see; even on the same type of stone, cut by the same person, with the same machine - the number of variables above, particularly human variables, can produce wildly different outcomes.
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Now obviously there is a well-known exception to this, some Thuringian stones were cut with a particular type of saw (I assume non-automated), and have quite distinctive saw marks. But not all Thuris have these, some have other saw marks, and some might have been lapped through. So all it'll tell you is if you definitely do have a Thuri, not having them doesn't necessarily mean that you don't. It won't give a false positive, but it can give a false negative.
Apart from that though... trying to id a European stone from saw marks is a fool's errand. You might as well be reading tea leaves.
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And lastly, as you perhaps guessed from the sentence above, I don't know about whether this holds for Japanese stones. I know you can sometimes tell stuff about their age from saw marks, but perhaps different mines did use different saws too? Can one of our jnat experts (@Steve56 @rideon66 @alex1921 &c.) offer any insights here...?
Saw marks are easily the stupidest way to try to identify a stone.
The reason is because once stone saws became automated everybody probably used the pretty much the same kind of thing, the reason that saw marks on different stones were different isn't because the saws were different. Here are six stones, all cut by the same person, on the same machine, on the same day (I saw him saw them with mine own eyes):
Admittedly you can have more than one saw blade on a machine, but that's neither here nor there, these stones were all cut with the same blade. The reason the marks are different depends on other things: How much you raise or lower the blade, which will depend on the depth of the stone. How fast you put the stone through it, which will depend on the person using it and what they think the stone can take in terms of softness/hardness. And how many passes you do, which will also depend on the person doing it, and what they think about the depth. It could all just depend on how hungover someone is on a particular day.
As you can see; even on the same type of stone, cut by the same person, with the same machine - the number of variables above, particularly human variables, can produce wildly different outcomes.
---
Now obviously there is a well-known exception to this, some Thuringian stones were cut with a particular type of saw (I assume non-automated), and have quite distinctive saw marks. But not all Thuris have these, some have other saw marks, and some might have been lapped through. So all it'll tell you is if you definitely do have a Thuri, not having them doesn't necessarily mean that you don't. It won't give a false positive, but it can give a false negative.
Apart from that though... trying to id a European stone from saw marks is a fool's errand. You might as well be reading tea leaves.
---
And lastly, as you perhaps guessed from the sentence above, I don't know about whether this holds for Japanese stones. I know you can sometimes tell stuff about their age from saw marks, but perhaps different mines did use different saws too? Can one of our jnat experts (@Steve56 @rideon66 @alex1921 &c.) offer any insights here...?