Considering the lack of information or documentation of these rare and spectacular stones, the internet needs a review of one.
First, I feel I need to tell you guys about the customer service at Griffith Shaving Goods. I bought this from Matt, who runs the site. I can’t speak highly enough of this man, he is knowledgable in all areas of hones, yet delightfully humble. We chatted about stones for a while, covering the Artaunon, Coticules, Lorraines, and he even let me in on a new stone he was producing, the Smithfield Hone. Locally gathered and cut by himself, this guy is quite dedicated to the art of honing. He also tested a few coticules for me, and gave me great feedback on them, but it was then that my HAD started to itch.
So, onto the stone...
Mined from the Taunus Mountains in Germany back in god knows when, this barber hone sized Artaunon stone seemed to fair really well over time. This can only be due to its hardness, which is 7 - 7.5 on the mohs scale. Let’s all take a moment to honor the workers who all but destroyed their bodies cutting artaunons all day long.
The abrasive in these is quartzite, making it a type of quartzitic sandstone. It sort of feels like marble in the hand. Their resistance to slurrying poses an obvious problem, and an expensive problem at that if you wish to consistently use the base slurry. It needs and eats DMTs for breakfast, so I reluctantly took an 8” DMT coarse to it, and in relief I found it to be FLAT (thanks Matt). I tried to flatten the other side to avoid wearing away the stamp over time, but there aren’t enough hours in the day. It took a few minutes to work up a thin slurry, such a precious slurry. I didn’t snap a picture of the slurry or how it darkened when honing, but I can assure you it cut fast. A little stiction could be felt upon diluting the slurry, and it’s overall feel was quite nice. Felt glassy, yet efficient.
On water, this stone is extremely slow. After a coticule, I must have done 75 laps on it with a taped razor, and it was just beginning to develop a microbevel. The shave was sub par… I obviously didn’t spend enough time on it, or maybe a pressure thing. I hear you can get great shaves from them, but I get much faster results from my coticules. Unfortunately the artaunon was reassigned to pre-finishing work. The stiction rises significantly on these stones on water only. This was perhaps the most striking thing about the artaunon - with a well dressed surface it really sucks down the blade and feels super glassy.
As for knives, however, this with water puts an extremely fine finish on a knife - super polished edge that push cuts like a coticule edge. No need to worry about gouging this thing.
As a one-stone-hone the artaunon is more than capable (or so I hear for finishing), but it’s main use now is as a base stone for coticule slurry. This is precisely why in the first picture it is pearly white (freshly unwrapped), but the other, more recent, photos show a yellow staining. I find it extremely useful for use with coticule slurry - it will basically never dish, and provides a more than ample surface for the coticule garnets to tumble around to cut efficiently. The more I use the artaunon with coti slurry, the more polished its surface gets. This makes sense, since garnets have around the same mohs hardness. The more polished the surface, the more stiction.
In conclusion:
- Matt’s great
- Fast with slurry if it gives you any
- Very slow on water
- Efficient with coticule slurry
- Feedback is like efficient glass
- Will survive until judgement day
First, I feel I need to tell you guys about the customer service at Griffith Shaving Goods. I bought this from Matt, who runs the site. I can’t speak highly enough of this man, he is knowledgable in all areas of hones, yet delightfully humble. We chatted about stones for a while, covering the Artaunon, Coticules, Lorraines, and he even let me in on a new stone he was producing, the Smithfield Hone. Locally gathered and cut by himself, this guy is quite dedicated to the art of honing. He also tested a few coticules for me, and gave me great feedback on them, but it was then that my HAD started to itch.
So, onto the stone...
Mined from the Taunus Mountains in Germany back in god knows when, this barber hone sized Artaunon stone seemed to fair really well over time. This can only be due to its hardness, which is 7 - 7.5 on the mohs scale. Let’s all take a moment to honor the workers who all but destroyed their bodies cutting artaunons all day long.
The abrasive in these is quartzite, making it a type of quartzitic sandstone. It sort of feels like marble in the hand. Their resistance to slurrying poses an obvious problem, and an expensive problem at that if you wish to consistently use the base slurry. It needs and eats DMTs for breakfast, so I reluctantly took an 8” DMT coarse to it, and in relief I found it to be FLAT (thanks Matt). I tried to flatten the other side to avoid wearing away the stamp over time, but there aren’t enough hours in the day. It took a few minutes to work up a thin slurry, such a precious slurry. I didn’t snap a picture of the slurry or how it darkened when honing, but I can assure you it cut fast. A little stiction could be felt upon diluting the slurry, and it’s overall feel was quite nice. Felt glassy, yet efficient.
On water, this stone is extremely slow. After a coticule, I must have done 75 laps on it with a taped razor, and it was just beginning to develop a microbevel. The shave was sub par… I obviously didn’t spend enough time on it, or maybe a pressure thing. I hear you can get great shaves from them, but I get much faster results from my coticules. Unfortunately the artaunon was reassigned to pre-finishing work. The stiction rises significantly on these stones on water only. This was perhaps the most striking thing about the artaunon - with a well dressed surface it really sucks down the blade and feels super glassy.
As for knives, however, this with water puts an extremely fine finish on a knife - super polished edge that push cuts like a coticule edge. No need to worry about gouging this thing.
As a one-stone-hone the artaunon is more than capable (or so I hear for finishing), but it’s main use now is as a base stone for coticule slurry. This is precisely why in the first picture it is pearly white (freshly unwrapped), but the other, more recent, photos show a yellow staining. I find it extremely useful for use with coticule slurry - it will basically never dish, and provides a more than ample surface for the coticule garnets to tumble around to cut efficiently. The more I use the artaunon with coti slurry, the more polished its surface gets. This makes sense, since garnets have around the same mohs hardness. The more polished the surface, the more stiction.
In conclusion:
- Matt’s great
- Fast with slurry if it gives you any
- Very slow on water
- Efficient with coticule slurry
- Feedback is like efficient glass
- Will survive until judgement day
