Well, week #14 has been a little long in coming due to some dismal events which overtook my stalwart family, but we're back in our modified grooves and in that spirit my year of PIF'ing is underway again. For week 14, I'm offering up something special: my mistakes. It's hard to come by these. There's a lucky fellow who got my ex-wife (didn't work out so well for either of them) and someone driving around in a 94 Chrysler Minivan cursing my name, but as a general rule, my errors get buried or absorbed into whatever dimension bad decisions go. I've not made a habit of passing them on.
That changes today.
From time to time I try to win the eBay game and in most things I do pretty well. I've gotten some spectacular razors over the years as well as other bits and bobs. In the matter of hones, however, it's been a crapshoot. I think I'm getting a Thuri and it turns out to be a carborundum. I think it's an arkie and instead I find in the unboxing another carborundum. Could that be an overlooked Jnat? No, it's a, wait for it, carborundum.
I don't know how many hones the Carborundum company made, but i'm pretty sure we could fix every bad road in america by using just the grit from all the carborundum hones on eBay. What puzzles me is their power of mimicry. These are the Jimmy Fallon of hones (minus the musical talent). A few months ago I bought a french press off eBay that turned out to be a carborundum hone saturated with caffeine.
Well I've kept the things around because they didn't keep making them to one day populate the listings in eBay. They kept making them because they were damn good synthetic hones and every house in America at one time probably had them. If yours didn't, then you or your parents probably were Soviet moles. I keep thinking I'll finally get that old scythe down from the attic, sharpen it up and clear some brush or maybe take my axe, give it a touch up, and turn that huge old fallen oak into firewood. Then I realize that I might break a sweat and go back to my nap. I now realize that this will never, ever happen and so these hones must go.
Here are three hones that came to me in various disguises but are actually all vintage carborundum hones. I've degreased them all, but what little lapping strength is left to me I've saved for honest natural rocks that don't pretend to be things they're not. You'll have to flatten them yourself if you want 'em flat. Two of them come in cool old boxes and two of them still have their labels. I think the little one was once owned by Al Capone but can't prove it and I know with moral, but not historical, certainty that the middle one traveled with Rudyard Kipling for most of his life. If you believe either of these assertions, then I also have some property in NJ I'd like to discuss with you.
QUALIFICATIONS. You don't need to be a badged member, but I will ask for a post count of at least 500 to be eligible for this PIF. I would also prefer to never see these on eBay again so please promise that if you end up not using them, they will be given away and not sold on eBay where the odds are high I'll buy them again. State that "I'm in" and tell me what the biggest mistake you ever bought on eBay was.
pics.
Here are the three hones you'll get. The largest one has the half box which is homemade and even has tiny little feet on the bottom. The middle one has an extremely well done homemade box in which the chisel marks are clearly visible and the little one comes in its birthday suit
View attachment 501717
In their boxes.
View attachment 501718
And just because he's cool, this picture of Camus. Kids, don't smoke. That's strictly for French existentialists.
The winner will be chosen by Petros the Pelican.
That changes today.
From time to time I try to win the eBay game and in most things I do pretty well. I've gotten some spectacular razors over the years as well as other bits and bobs. In the matter of hones, however, it's been a crapshoot. I think I'm getting a Thuri and it turns out to be a carborundum. I think it's an arkie and instead I find in the unboxing another carborundum. Could that be an overlooked Jnat? No, it's a, wait for it, carborundum.
I don't know how many hones the Carborundum company made, but i'm pretty sure we could fix every bad road in america by using just the grit from all the carborundum hones on eBay. What puzzles me is their power of mimicry. These are the Jimmy Fallon of hones (minus the musical talent). A few months ago I bought a french press off eBay that turned out to be a carborundum hone saturated with caffeine.
Well I've kept the things around because they didn't keep making them to one day populate the listings in eBay. They kept making them because they were damn good synthetic hones and every house in America at one time probably had them. If yours didn't, then you or your parents probably were Soviet moles. I keep thinking I'll finally get that old scythe down from the attic, sharpen it up and clear some brush or maybe take my axe, give it a touch up, and turn that huge old fallen oak into firewood. Then I realize that I might break a sweat and go back to my nap. I now realize that this will never, ever happen and so these hones must go.
Here are three hones that came to me in various disguises but are actually all vintage carborundum hones. I've degreased them all, but what little lapping strength is left to me I've saved for honest natural rocks that don't pretend to be things they're not. You'll have to flatten them yourself if you want 'em flat. Two of them come in cool old boxes and two of them still have their labels. I think the little one was once owned by Al Capone but can't prove it and I know with moral, but not historical, certainty that the middle one traveled with Rudyard Kipling for most of his life. If you believe either of these assertions, then I also have some property in NJ I'd like to discuss with you.
QUALIFICATIONS. You don't need to be a badged member, but I will ask for a post count of at least 500 to be eligible for this PIF. I would also prefer to never see these on eBay again so please promise that if you end up not using them, they will be given away and not sold on eBay where the odds are high I'll buy them again. State that "I'm in" and tell me what the biggest mistake you ever bought on eBay was.
pics.
Here are the three hones you'll get. The largest one has the half box which is homemade and even has tiny little feet on the bottom. The middle one has an extremely well done homemade box in which the chisel marks are clearly visible and the little one comes in its birthday suit
View attachment 501717
In their boxes.
View attachment 501718
And just because he's cool, this picture of Camus. Kids, don't smoke. That's strictly for French existentialists.
The winner will be chosen by Petros the Pelican.
