Water of Ayr, Tam O'Shanter, and the Scotch hone

[brightred]

No

why do you think that this is not a dalmore blue/TOS combination stone? as you probably know, these combos do exist, and then there are dalmore blue stones that do not have the nice swirls these stones are known for. i have a big labelled one that looks exactly like yours, except for the spots, but with the sparkling particles, no swirls. i may post a few pictures, if i can find them...

best regards,
hans

 

[brightred]

here you go...
dalmore blue without swirls on the left.
an old TOS at the top with a WOA label.
a small labelled White TOS in the middle.

 

[brightred]

one more picture of my scotch hones.

1: dalmore blue with swirls
2: TOS
3: TOS of a TOS/WOA combo stone
4: TOS, a beautiful, old and very biright and fine stone. originally glued into a wooden box.
5: TOS/WOA combo stone
6: TOS
7: labelled dalmore blue without swirls
8: TOS in mauchline ware box
9: TOS in a wooden box (broad arrow mark), that also contained the WOA nr 13
10: TOS, old, labelled as WOA
11: White TOS. labelled
12: TOS
13 WOA, see stone nr. 9

 

[kcb5150]

Because I have owned dalmores and it's not that.. At least not what they slapped that label on most of the time... it's much too fine to be a dalmore. It also doesn't lap like a dalmore it's too soft, chip out like a dalmore, etc.. That said, they were way too fast and loose with nomenclature so who knows what the thought process of the ppl classifying the material that came through there was.

 

[Seveneighth]

one more picture of my scotch hones.

1: dalmore blue with swirls
2: TOS
3: TOS of a TOS/WOA combo stone
4: TOS, a beautiful, old and very biright and fine stone. originally glued into a wooden box.
5: TOS/WOA combo stone
6: TOS
7: labelled dalmore blue without swirls
8: TOS in mauchline ware box
9: TOS in a wooden box (broad arrow mark), that also contained the WOA nr 13
10: TOS, old, labelled as WOA
11: White TOS. labelled
12: TOS
13 WOA, see stone nr. 9

nice, very nice

 

[rideon66]

I have been looking for one of these for sometime and recently got lucky. These things are hard to come by. I see the dual Scotch hones more often. Very happy with this one.

 

[rideon66]

So the one above is the The Dark Blue Water of Ayr - Enterkine quarry. These don't have the spots. More like a black Escher. The edge seems like a mix between a coticule and an Ark.
Does anyone have one of these. Trying to figure out if this is a characteristic of these. When viewed close up with a loupe and light there are very fine sparkles in the stone. Nothing bad I believe this is part of the matrix of these and want to know if other have it. Not easy to see.

 

[eKretz]

Can't help with your query, but that's a mighty cool stone. Nice find.

 

[kcb5150]

Two new dual hones. First is labelled fine tam o shanter and dalmore. Needed to heavily roll one corner on the tam as it has the jnat squiggles and just wanted to shed chips like mad. The tam is marked as fine and razor grade. It looks identical to the ones labelled snakestone that I have had in finger stone format but these are both 9x3 bench stones. The Dalmore is dalmore, but it is very beautiful.

Second dual hone had a fragment the side of a lentil of a white tam o shanter label but it was in terrible shape and disintegrated almost immediately, unfortunately. Quite white tam, quite light dalmore.

 

[kcb5150]

Visual comparison of the 3 I have. The backing on my small one is nothing like the two dalmores. The grain, draw, porosity and hardness are all different. The tam seems similar to the white large. The two dalmores are broadly similar despite looking quite different.

 

[LJS]

Nice hones! Is the small one also a dalmore combo? I only have ToS/WoA combo.

 

[kcb5150]

I have no idea, it's weird, it feels nothing like dalmores I have had.

 

[SliceOfLife]

Where did you snag those 9x3" combos? Cool stones.

 

[RobbyC]

Two new dual hones. First is labelled fine tam o shanter and dalmore. Needed to heavily roll one corner on the tam as it has the jnat squiggles and just wanted to shed chips like mad. The tam is marked as fine and razor grade. It looks identical to the ones labelled snakestone that I have had in finger stone format but these are both 9x3 bench stones. The Dalmore is dalmore, but it is very beautiful. View attachment 1209248View attachment 1209249View attachment 1209250View attachment 1209251View attachment 1209251View attachment 1209252

Second dual hone had a fragment the side of a lentil of a white tam o shanter label but it was in terrible shape and disintegrated almost immediately, unfortunately. Quite white tam, quite light dalmore. View attachment 1209254View attachment 1209255View attachment 1209256

What a beautiful pair of stones.. I’ve never seen dual hones in that size before!
And the dalmore pattern is wonderful

 

[LJS]

I have no idea, it's weird, it feels nothing like dalmores I have had.

Does it feel more similar to Tam O stones or finer? Given the size I just wonder if your smaller is the Ayr/Tam combo. To me, they feel very powdery when I rub my fingers on them dry which dalmores don’t feel like. That is super subjective so I almost hate to throw that out there, but to me there is a strong tactile characteristic.

Have to add, I really love the look of nicely figured dalmores! Have 4 or 5 around here that see virtually no use but you make me want to pull them out just to look at them now. Such cool patterns. Life is too short to use ugly stones

 

[kcb5150]

It's sort of a cold, silky feeling stone

 

[LJS]

Sounds more like ayr stone by that. Interesting hones for sure.

 

[kcb5150]

It reminds me more of those weird, intermediary layers you see in tams sometimes.

 

[RandM]

Having just seen a Scotch Dual Stone on eBay and not knowing what it was, it has been interesting to read the information about the Scotch Dual Hone and the differences between 'Tam O'Shanter' and 'Water of Ayr' Stones

 

[SliceOfLife]

Just picked up a gray / black tam... Based on what I've seen on a few of these stones I think that the Tam o shanter material must be in the same mine as the water of ayr. And the pure white tamoshanter with black spots transitions to darker and darker material with light areas surrounding the black spots until eventually it essentially flips and becomes a dark material possibly with white spots.