Some old stones arrived today (a two-part thread)

[cotedupy]

I suppose I could've posted these in the 'Mystery Hone' thread, but I already put a picture of them there before I received, and I have a reasonable guess as to what most are anyway. So didn't want to clog it up with a load more pictures, plus I thought it would be fun to have a new thread. With the exception of the first stone I haven't handled any of these types before, so please chime in with thoughts about ID if you think I've got them wrong, or just more generally.

Stones 1 - 4 came together from the UK, at about £8 per stone:

Stone 1 is a broken Translucent Arkansas, and it's quite translucent:

Stone 2 I'm not certain about, and the seller didn't know. It was quite dark when I got it, but cleaned up it's a green-grey colour, with some line patterns. This is a novaculite type stone, with a very small amount of translucency, and very fine. I think I may have got lucky with a CF? Or maybe a kind of LI? Ignore the reflections in these pics - the lines on the stone are the dark ones.

Stone 3 the seller said was a Grecian (/LI). It's also a novaculite type, with similarly small amount of translucency. Also green-grey in colour but lighter than 2, and with more speckles. Fine, but slightly less so than 2:

Stone 4 seller said a Purple Slate. I assume this is a Welsh version. No translucency, slurry is quite purple:

Any thoughts much appreciated! Part Two to follow...

 

[cotedupy]

This final stone I'm more lost on. I bought it separately and cost a bit more, though it's bigger than the others at roughly 200 x 45 x 30 mm. Seller thought it could possibly be a black ark, or maybe a Turkish (which is what I thought from the pictures), but now I have it and have cleaned a bit I don't think it's either. This came from an old collection belonging to a carpenter in the UK, and will apparently be at least 50 years old.

These pictures when wet, show the lines and inclusions that made me think it could be a Turkish:

But the stone is incredibly fine, hard, and dense. Much more so than my old Turkish Oilstone. Nor is it translucent, and it doesn't feel like novaculite when lapped. Here is a pic when dry (it's probably slightly darker than this suggests):

And here a close-up of a chip in one corner (ditto). There's a very light speckly character to the stone.

I again thought perhaps that I might be lucky and have a TO'S - stone is super fine and I'd be surprised if it wasn't from the UK. But the speckles are nothing like as apparent as most TO'S pictures I've seen, and the stone is darker than they seem normally. So I had a look in Henk Bos 3, and the stone it really resembles is the one he calls 'Dark Blue Water of Ayr'. Though really I've no idea - it could be from anywhere.

Here's a pic of the slurry; bright, light, grey:

Any experts out there got any opinions? I'd have thought these type of inclusions might make the stone easier to ID for people with some knowledge...

 

[RobbyC]

Does the black stone have a pungent smell when you lapped it ?
I’ve had a couple of stones that had the same white lines / inclusions and I put them down as black arks, they had a strong sulphur smell when lapping, it was quite noticeable, they were both very fine stones also.

Tams and WOAs are both reasonably soft, and i find they quickly start to clog up the lapping plates with material and have an earthy smell

The others I think you are spot on with, trans, two different types of idwal and a purple Welsh slate.

Rob

 

[cotedupy]

Does the black stone have a pungent smell when you lapped it ?
I’ve had a couple of stones that had the same white lines / inclusions and I put them down as black arks, they had a strong sulphur smell when lapping, it was quite noticeable, they were both very fine stones also.

Tams and WOAs are both reasonably soft, and i find they quickly start to clog up the lapping plates with material and have an earthy smell

The others I think you are spot on with, trans, two different types of idwal and a purple Welsh slate.

Rob

Oh good q. that's jogged my memory actually - the guy I got from said one of the reasons he was torn between black ark and Turkish is that it did have the sulphur smell that you get with the latter. I was outside having a cig when I did earlier, but just tried again, and yep... very sulphury / eggy. And nope - it's not the kind of mud that will clog up a plate, so not one of the Scottish stones then. Sounds exactly like yours tbh... you reckon black ark?

It just doesn't feel that much like my other novaculite stones, and it's finer than any of them, and not as quick. But I have vanishingly little first hand experience tbh, just have read a lot.

(p.s. Are you the same Rob C who sells some stones on UK Ebay? If so - you've got some really nice stuff! I'll definitely be picking something up at some point I imagine .

 

[RobbyC]

Mine looked just like that and I could never figure out exactly what they were, the surface pattern on mine matched a known black ark, but I’ve never had the smell from a known ark. I think I sold them as unknown novaculites

Mine were hard to lap and they had a different sulphur smell to a turkey, in fact they reeked somewhat when lapping.

Mine were both old stones too

The likelihood is that it will always be a mystery hone, give it a good testing and you might find it is a great finisher!

And yes that is me, though my hoarding tendencies have taken back over somewhat after clearing a lot of stones last year. If you ever were searching for a particular rock feel free to message me on here!

Rob

 

[timwcic]

it did have the sulphur smell

Sulphur smell is a good bet it’s a Turkey Stone

 

[cotedupy]

Sulphur smell is a good bet it’s a Turkey Stone

Yep, and I have got an old Turkish Stone, so perhaps I'll try them side by side later. It's just there are a lot of other aspects that are very dissimilar, though I've not tried the new stone with oil yet so that might change things.

I've seen you have a pretty sweet collection of stuff... you've never had noticeable rotten egg / H2S smell off any of your Arks or anything?

 

[timwcic]

I've seen you have a pretty sweet collection of stuff... you've never had noticeable rotten egg / H2S smell off any of your Arks or anything?

Thanks, I have been lucky to find a few good hones.

I have honed several dozen Arks (H,S,W) and never noticed a Sulphur aroma from any of them. I have got a Sulphur smell once, from my only Turkey stone.

 

[cotedupy]

Thanks, I have been lucky to find a few good hones.

I have honed several dozen Arks (H,S,W) and never noticed a Sulphur aroma from any of them. I have got a Sulphur smell once, from my only Turkey stone.

View attachment 1289524

Nice looking stone! From the box I'm guessing it's an old one, rather than one of the known-source Cretan stones...? Looks to have remarkably few cracks &c. if so.

I've just lapped my two a bit side by side, and they smell the exactly same: rotten-egg-Hydrogen-Sulphide, and the slurry is very similar. But you can see the colour difference of the stones; the new one is a very dark grey, almost going blue. Whereas my previous is the more characteristic grey-brown.

When oiled they look more similar (but then so does everything!):

The really big difference though is hardness and porosity, which obviously can apparently vary quite widely in Turkish stones, but these two are really quite different. Here's the new one after a day in simple green:

Here' my previous one after 90 mins:

Those last pics obviously also have wildly disparate lighting. But my previous stone went pretty well white in a lot of places very quickly, while staying almost black in others. And the new stone barely changed colour with a far longer soak.

And one last pic for good measure... this is what the Turkish I already had looks like when clean and dry (and not just been degreased!):

 

[cotedupy]

Having just used them both side by side they are undoubtedly very different stones - the darker one is far finer and harder.

Having said that I've read a few people saying that Turkish stones came in two varieties, and that the darker ones are much finer. Alongside the fact that they smell identical, look similar, and that even my new stone is very quick for something so fine... I'd be just about be prepared to believe they are of the same ilk. Though I wouldn't put tuppence on it with any degree of certainty!

(And FWIW - I much prefer the lighter, coarser stone. For what I do it's truly exceptional).