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

Since the kilts are out. Some more color variants. These are more tool/knife stones or midrange work.

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Here's the notice from the trade publication I mentioned earlier. Note that in this iteration (1884) of name changes, "Water of Ayr" is specifically mentioned as an inferior quality stone... later that would change again.

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What are you calling those four on the left? Dalmore? Have any labeled Water of Ayr by chance?
 
Just some historic stuff to share here:
Advertisement from D. Giovannacci, L&B. Ghelfi, Catalog 1897. They had a big cooperation with the Tam o Shanter and Water of Ayr


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Pricelist 1897: Pierre D‘Ecosse, Tam o Shanter and Water of Ayr Hone Works

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I have wanted one of these for sometime. I have a couple Tam O Shanter stones and love them. So I find it hard to justify paying the price for another one attached to a WOA since they go for a pretty good price. Haven't found one by itself for sale that can be verified for a reasonable price. There are also some old TOS labeled as WOA since they used to label them all that at one time, but those are easy to tell the difference on. Here are the two main variants I have seen that are the two they talk about in the H&G Part 3.

The first one has the classic look. The second is more of a black slate looking and more like a black escher as I have read it.

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In the Pricelist (right) you can also see the Blocks which were in red color, on the left you can see the octagonal formed ones like these here:

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What are you calling those four on the left? Dalmore? Have any labeled Water of Ayr by chance?
Far right came with a Water of Ayr label.
The ToS stones in the middle similarly labelled.
One of the Dalmores on the left was labelled. The others were identified as Dalmores - I have included them in the picture. One was supposedly a yellow but so clearly isn't and is a very very hard stone instead.
 
Thanks for that ⅞. I have been looking for the right things visually it seems and you labeled WoA helps what I had in mind. Sorry I couldn’t read that label in the pic (my eyes!) but the stone looked like it.

Read all the links and mentioned publication which was the brain-fodder I was looking for. Interesting history of these stones, quarries, and brands.

I might have to print that fist logo out. I have not seen that one before anywhere
 
Enjoyed that PdF, thanks!

I live within 30 miles of the location of the quarries and found it fascinating reading about the history of how they came about.

One day I'll actually go and visit the quarry.

I'm still waiting for you to dig one up and send it to me!
 
Thanks for that ⅞. I have been looking for the right things visually it seems and you labeled WoA helps what I had in mind. Sorry I couldn’t read that label in the pic (my eyes!) but the stone looked like it.

Read all the links and mentioned publication which was the brain-fodder I was looking for. Interesting history of these stones, quarries, and brands.

I might have to print that fist logo out. I have not seen that one before anywhere

Yes - but health warning - as others have said - labelling of these were inconsistent. I would stongly advise taking each stone as an individual.

For instance - one of my Dalmores looks identical to the other but is insanely fine and hard. It is in fact my best natural finisher. And yet if it is a Dalmore then those were meant to be "lower grit" stones.

I took a trip up to the Moughton whetstone hole last year. I was surprised by the variance in such a specific rock. Plus we know there is quite a range of difference between the different Charnley Forest quarries.
 
Yep. Totally get that about natural
stones. Have quite a few that don’t fit the normal expectations- both good and bad.
 
Bringing this back up because I've been playing around with these hones a bit more with my knives lately and that got me digging around the web and looking at a lot of images of labeled stones.

The "New Vein Ayrstone" is an unknown type... but looks like an ultra hard and fine WoA in a greenish-grey color (instead of black) and with the speckling much more prevalent. Doesn't feel a thing like the WoA or Tam in use, but not sure how much of that is due to its hardness or size (it's tiny).

The White Tam is hard and fast and I love it with knives. I've had grey tams that behaved like it but were softer and less fine. Not sure if thats related to color or just coincidence.

The Black stone I call a Black Tam is what is labeled as WOA everywhere else. It's kind of greasy feeling, smoother to the tongue than the Tam but gritty under a tooth and a lot softer. I'll shave off it later this week, but I highly doubt I'd consider it a decent razor finisher... could surprise me though, it HHT's well enough.

Tam O's are hard to gouge with a knife, the WoA (black stone) gouges easily.



Hardness?
New Vein > Tam > WoA

Fineness ?
New Vein > WoA > Tam

Slurry darkness?
WoA > New Vein > Tam


Some fresh pics after lapping all three.
 

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Bringing this back up because I've been playing around with these hones a bit more with my knives lately and that got me digging around the web and looking at a lot of images of labeled stones.

The "New Vein Ayrstone" is an unknown type... but looks like an ultra hard and fine WoA in a greenish-grey color (instead of black) and with the speckling much more prevalent. Doesn't feel a thing like the WoA or Tam in use, but not sure how much of that is due to its hardness or size (it's tiny).

The White Tam is hard and fast and I love it with knives. I've had grey tams that behaved like it but were softer and less fine. Not sure if thats related to color or just coincidence.

The Black stone I call a Black Tam is what is labeled as WOA everywhere else. It's kind of greasy feeling, smoother to the tongue than the Tam but gritty under a tooth and a lot softer. I'll shave off it later this week, but I highly doubt I'd consider it a decent razor finisher... could surprise me though, it HHT's well enough.

Tam O's are hard to gouge with a knife, the WoA (black stone) gouges easily.



Hardness?
New Vein > Tam > WoA

Fineness ?
New Vein > WoA > Tam

Slurry darkness?
WoA > New Vein > Tam


Some fresh pics after lapping all three.
To what do we account for the variances / range of stones? Are the stones mined at the quarry / quarries diverse or is there some sort of misidentification going on historically?
 
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