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Mystery hones... Let's see what you have

It's not a bad thing at all... Even if you don't want them, washitas are pulling very very good prices nowadays
 

timwcic

"Look what I found"
My latest hunk of purple with green stone. A big and heavy 6 x 3 1/4 x 3/4. Looks and feels Vosgienne, with a holographic pattern running through the surface. What say the brain trust

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@timwcic I think you might be right on the VOS maybe lune. I have one that is very similar to yours that I was struggling if it was a Vos / Lune / Welsh slate. Mine is on the top next to a Welsh Slate. You can see the one fainant wisp of green in the middle left of the stone. Very hard, very fine and a really good finisher once it was lapped. It took a long time to get flat. I am guessing it is in the Lune Family, just based on results. It is in my not to be sold pile.

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My latest hunk of purple with green stone. A big and heavy 6 x 3 1/4 x 3/4. Looks and feels Vosgienne, with a holographic pattern running through the surface. What say the brain trust

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That rock looks awesome. What's it feel like? What's the feedback like? Does it feel like a slate? I don't know much about Vosgienne stones.
 
They're all up in price if they are sorted out. Well up.. like 100% up if properly described and lapped
 
Empire, that white one looks like a ceramic Jsynth to me. I've gotten a few, usually masquerading as translucent arks.
Yeah that was what I thought when I first unwrapped it. It's got su(holes from gas bubbles) on it, it's hard to see but you can if you enlarge the last picture and the grey lines aren't swarf though it looks like it(also my initial thought but there's a chip and it's easier to see the grey material in the matrix. It's also much heavier and dense than ceramic. I knew it wasn't an ark but I still haven't figured it out. I'm 90% sure it's a natural stone, just not one I've ever seen. Its not very fast. (Tried 4x to get pictures to load)


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timwcic

"Look what I found"
@timwcic I think you might be right on the VOS maybe lune. I have one that is very similar to yours that I was struggling if it was a Vos / Lune / Welsh slate. Mine is on the top next to a Welsh Slate. You can see the one fainant wisp of green in the middle left of the stone. Very hard, very fine and a really good finisher once it was lapped. It took a long time to get flat. I am guessing it is in the Lune Family, just based on results. It is in my not to be sold pile.

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That rock looks awesome. What's it feel like? What's the feedback like? Does it feel like a slate? I don't know much about Vosgienne stones.

Thanks all for the input. It a nice hunk of rock
It’s all dressed up and ready to go. My attention is focused on a mystery stone, a Lorraine Rouge/Rouge Du Salm, that is really impressing me. It will get it chance soon
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Empire, that white one looks like a ceramic Jsynth to me. I've gotten a few, usually masquerading as translucent arks.
Maybe I don't know anything about Japanese stones natural or synth. It's got the little holes in the bottom of it, kind like from gas bubbles or a sand wash out like low grade washitas get sometimes. I don't know but it's pretty fine in sure it'll finish a chisel if I'm ever caught without a washita(unlikely. Very, very unlikely). It'll be good for upper middle work.

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Here's one. This was given to me decades ago, from the toolbox of a family member who passed away.

It's clearly some kind of stone, and obviously has a more and less coarse side.

Is it Arkansas? Seems rather coarse to me. Even the finer side feels way coarser than, say, my 1000 Japanese stone.

Obviously, it needs a bunch of leveling.


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Legion

Staff member
Don't bother lapping it. It's not suitable for razors. It's more intended for garden tools and things of that nature, and it doesn't need to be perfectly flat for that.
 
Don't bother lapping it. It's not suitable for razors. It's more intended for garden tools and things of that nature, and it doesn't need to be perfectly flat for that.

Duly noted. I thought it may be useful to cut a new edge on something that is really damaged. Certainly not for a razor, but I thought some old knives, perhaps... My coarsest stone otherwise is a 600 (I think... Whatever the red one is) DMT.

Guess I should buy a proper 220 or so stone instead for beat-up knives. For machetes, lawn mower blades, etc (things I'm guessing this is intended for), I just use the bench grinder or a metal file.
 
Duly noted. I thought it may be useful to cut a new edge on something that is really damaged. Certainly not for a razor, but I thought some old knives, perhaps... My coarsest stone otherwise is a 600 (I think... Whatever the red one is) DMT.

Guess I should buy a proper 220 or so stone instead for beat-up knives. For machetes, lawn mower blades, etc (things I'm guessing this is intended for), I just use the bench grinder or a metal file.

No need at all to buy another 220 when you've got that stone :).

I use SiC Coarse and Fines for repair work on really quite smart knives all the time. They're excellent; eat steel, very hard wearing, and just generally good at what they're for. You can also, with a bit of a knack work them quite fine.

EDIT - I just went and thinned and put an edge on a knife to show. It's not's necessarily easy to do this, but they're still a lot more versatile than people think... (and only stropped on the sleeve of my t-shirt!)


 
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Yeah that's a coarse/med (or maybe coarse/fine) crystolon. It's like 80/120 or 80/200 grit or so. Good oil stone for coarse work on tools.
 
No need at all to buy another 220 when you've got that stone :).

I use SiC Coarse and Fines for repair work on really quite smart knives all the time. They're excellent; eat steel, very hard wearing, and just generally good at what they're for. You can also, with a bit of a knack work them quite fine.

EDIT - I just went and thinned and put an edge on a knife to show. It's not's necessarily easy to do this, but they're still a lot more versatile than people think... (and only stropped on the sleeve of my t-shirt!)


They are fantastic for refreshing the surface of stones as well. I use mine to get arks cutting again all the time. My fine india to polish up a surface. I used my SiC stone recently on a knife my pop made that is some mutant hard tool steel stripped of a bulldozer or something. Even the SiC stone didn't want to eat it but I got it close eventually. Definitely not a razor stone but all whetstones are tools and do serve a purpose and that doesn't make it a bad stone. A bad stone is one without abrasives but then it's a building or paving stone so ultimately not worthless. That's why I don't mind gambling on stones off auction sites. Ive worked with my hands my whole life and have yet to find a stone I didn't have a great use for.
 
So this is up in the ark and washita but hopefully someone here will know. This stone was glued to to the top of a beaded box that had a washita in it with a pike soft ark label. I thought it could be a strop top at first. It kinda looks synthetic and it's pretty coarse, coarser than the Washita by far. It's black, it's got inclusions that run from plane to plane, and it looks kinda like it's sandstone and got mica sparkles through it. Feedback feels like the rough side of a queer creek but a little bit grittier.
even with spine leading strokes it feels like a gravel road . It's between 1/16"-1/4" inch thick. I have a piece of flagstone I lapped that is fine but if feels/looks similar. I don't know but I figured the think tank in it's exhausted experience would have the ticket.

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This is the lapped flagstone
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+1 on what ES said above too... SiC stones are very handy for that kind of thing. And indeed if you get it flat - for flattening other stones.

The effective grit will probably run a bit higher than the 80/200 that might be quoted too, because of different scales used. In comparison to Japanese stones I'd probably rate my Norton Coarse and fine at 140/400 ish.
 
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