Hone Gamble with me

[SliceOfLife]

Coming out of the SG, the stone is much more grey and less brown (almost could pass for a grey Tam, QC, or even a Carbo right out of the SG... but got a lot more character and reddish tones when I lapped it). Slurry is still that Mocha color though.

It's also a bit softer than it felt when it was loaded with oil.

No clue what this is. Still feels like a harder and finer QC to me though. I'll try using it later today.

1270 is fresh out Simple Green Soak. 1274 is after lapping.

 

[Legion]

Coming out of the SG, the stone is much more grey and less brown (almost could pass for a grey Tam, QC, or even a Carbo right out of the SG... but got a lot more character and reddish tones when I lapped it). Slurry is still that Mocha color though.

It's also a bit softer than it felt when it was loaded with oil.

No clue what this is. Still feels like a harder and finer QC to me though. I'll try using it later today.

1270 is fresh out Simple Green Soak. 1274 is after lapping.

That actually does look a bit like my Deerlick stone.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Yeah, fresh out the SG, definitely. I assume the reddish and patterning is only visible when the stone is caked in oil... and the SG just didn't penetrate deep enough, which is why it came back when I lapped.

It's back in the SG now, so we'll see how it looks tomorrow.


Gave it a go with a knife now that it's flat and this thing just obliterates steel. Surface feels to the touch like it should be 3-4k grit. But it pulls steel like it's 200-600 grit. Just instantly turns the oil jet black in the first few passes. Feedback very even and VERY grippy... Closest thing I can compare would be a fine india feel but less gritty and much much grippier.

I took more pictures... it seems to fade in and out of the simple sparkly gray to having those reddish patches and streaks depending on how wet it is and the lighting.

Back of stone has just been Simple green soaked and scrubbed a bit with a steel scrubber... no lapping.

 

[LJS]

Well, I didn’t want to say before and look all wrong…..but any chance you are holding a Dalmore there @SliceOfLife?

Sorry for the reflection in the photo - just notice I have a cracked screen protector on my phone.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Could be. I've never had a labeled dalmore before, so I'm not really able to ID them. My understanding is they tend to have subtle swirl patterns though? I dont see any on this.

 

[kcb5150]

Not that subtle a lot of the time.

 

[LJS]

Some are highly figured with swirl and some are bland as a mudstone. But a lot of your description makes me wonder. I had never slurried one before, just lapped, so I decided to just to see and it was similar to what you showed.

 

[kcb5150]

 

[LJS]

This one I have to wet to see any pattern, but it is Dalmore

 

[SliceOfLife]

Yep that's a dead ringer for this stone wet. How'd you ID it as a Dalmore? Is it labeled?

 

[LJS]

I have a number of more obvious swirly ones and some uglier ones too. Somewhere I think I have a labeled too, but they really aren’t razor stones so it doesn’t see much daylight. I received this one in the pic pre-identified but soaked with oil and ample smell and wasn’t 100% until it got the SG soak- which is when I saw the much less obvious patterning. If I had never owned others I probably couldn’t confirm, but it is. Side by side with more lovely figured cuts of stone it is totally the same - texture, hardness, feel, smell etc. if you know what I mean. Your initial description and pics made me wonder, but typically the dalmores are more easily identified and you don’t see the plain ones as frequently. I’ll mail it up if you want to try a side by side. I’ve actually been playing with it as a tool stone which it is decent at actually. Hard to beat an excellent washita, but this one and other Dalmores are good stones for carbon steels with pressure nonetheless. Pretty quick and decently fine finish.

 

[duke762]

I've done way better gambling on ebay, than at the casino.

I have been known to gamble with my life, and my freedom, but I rarely gamble with my money. On ebay, at least you get an educated guess, and I gamble there all too frequently......

Cool score!

 

[SliceOfLife]

I have a number of more obvious swirly ones and some uglier ones too. Somewhere I think I have a labeled too, but they really aren’t razor stones so it doesn’t see much daylight. I received this one in the pic pre-identified but soaked with oil and ample smell and wasn’t 100% until it got the SG soak- which is when I saw the much less obvious patterning. If I had never owned others I probably couldn’t confirm, but it is. Side by side with more lovely figured cuts of stone it is totally the same - texture, hardness, feel, smell etc. if you know what I mean. Your initial description and pics made me wonder, but typically the dalmores are more easily identified and you don’t see the plain ones as frequently. I’ll mail it up if you want to try a side by side. I’ve actually been playing with it as a tool stone which it is decent at actually. Hard to beat an excellent washita, but this one and other Dalmores are good stones for carbon steels with pressure nonetheless. Pretty quick and decently fine finish.

Appreciate the offer, but we don't need to waste the shipping cost. I'm gonna play around with it and decide if I like it, and if so, it'll become a "probable Dalmore" in my collection. If not, it goes in the box of doom.


Definitely feels quick. Not sure if I'd want to grind chips out with it, but feels like it'd make childs play of even an ultra-dull knife. And edge cuts paper with ease and sliced me 20 lbs of roasts down for beef jerky last night with no hesitance or tearing (wustof)... so definitely at least sharp enough for a workhorse knife. I'll try it on my fancier steel this weekend maybe.

Reminds me a bit of that green thing I call a soft charnley (But someone corrected me is some other British stone) and like with my knives, but definitely lower grit than that one. They might make a nice pair.


Pulls swarf so fast I thought the stone was auto-slurrying a ton... but there was none of the brown tinge that the stone's slurry has... it was just swarf. This thing eats steel.

 

[SliceOfLife]

I've done way better gambling on ebay, than at the casino.

Exactly. I like playing cards... but I definitely do better with the hone gambles.

 

[SliceOfLife]

So just Head to head compared it with a ruddy washita that I keep in my kitchen. Three german steel knives.

This stone is appreciably faster than the washita. But it's also not as high level of refinement. Whereas the washita finishes pass through paper like there's nothing there, this stones finish cuts clean (to the naked eye), without snagging or ripping, but you feel it. It's a big step down from the washita in refinement. I'd bet under a scope, I'd see some noticeable tearing.

If we say for the sake of comparison, the washita finish is about as sharp as a 4-5k... This would be more like 1k-2.5k... point is it's a BIG step down from washita finish....

Which is interesting because it FEELS like a Coarse/Medium carborundum almost under the knife... cuts crazy aggressive... but to the touch? You'd swear it's a finisher. Glassy smooth to the fingertip (Whereas even fine Carborundums grab your fingerpad and dont wanna let go). You need something hard (fingernail/tooth/tool) to notice just how big and grabby the grit is.

Might have a place in my kitchen... might not. I don't drop below a washita often... but I think I'd prefer it to an India (feels faster than Fine india for similar or slightly more refinement) and Crystolon (similar speed to F Crysto but much more refinement). Is it preferable to a DMT 1.2k/600 plate? Probably not... feels like it'd fulfill a vaguely similar purpose... but If I kept this in my kitchen I'd probably use it rather than go upstairs to get my DMT... so pretty good/close if you ask me.

 

[kcb5150]

In its day it was probably quite a nice thing just given the ability to eat metal.

 

[LJS]

Likely why it looked like a block of swarf in the eBay photos

 

[Gamma]

Every blue Dalmore I've had, and there have been several, was way finer than a 200x stone. Not saying it isn't one but I will say it's unusual. Naturals vary but 200x to 2-4k-ish relevance is sort of a huge jump. Seems odd, that's all. Odder things have happened though I guess.

 

[Wid]

Every blue Dalmore I've had, and there have been several, was way finer than a 200x stone. Not saying it isn't one but I will say it's unusual. Naturals vary but 200x to 2-4k-ish relevance is sort of a huge jump. Seems odd, that's all. Odder things have happened though I guess.

I’ve had a few myself and found them to be in the same range, 2-4K.

 

[Gamma]

@Wid Yah. I seem to remember Neil Miller and other vendor types leaning that way. I don't have one at the moment but if I did buy another I'd sorta expect that to be the ballpark.