If you sit out a few years the whole landscape changes. The guy A.J. doesn’t seem to have a presence on eBay any longer. Does anyone know of a current vendor for welsh slate? I would really like one of those hones that were known as “welsh Thuringians” or possibly one of those purple ones.
Welch slate?
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Inigo Jones sell the Dragons tongue.
www.inigojones.co.uk
Honing Stones Archives - Inigo Jones
An invaluable aid to the General Handyman, Gardener or the user of Specialist Cutting Tools.
I got a purple one w/ slurry stone from AJ I'll send you. Pm me if you want it. I think I payed like $15+shipping for it and never really used it much, but did have decent shave off of it. You might be better off with something else, depending on your needs.
The slate was a pain to use kinda, but i didn't have much experience then. I've had other English and welsh slates that were easy as hell to use. I've be using one that @cotedupy identified as a Nantlle Valley but I don't know. It's an amazing English slate, what I expected thuringians to be. Good/excellent English slate is different from what AJ sells but you can get a decent shaving edge from it.
Can you please make a short summary about this stone? I am looking for an affordable finisher. Is this one like this? Does it need to be flatten often?Inigo Jones sell the Dragons tongue.
Honing Stones Archives - Inigo Jones
An invaluable aid to the General Handyman, Gardener or the user of Specialist Cutting Tools.
I don't personally own that exact type of slate. My understanding is they are capable of finishing, or are at least a pre finisher, depending on your standards. My experience with other Welsh slates is that I usually prefer the edge they give with oil, rather than water. The edge with oil is more skin friendly and comfortable to me.
If you are only using it to finish razors it should not need flattening very often at all.
Look for a Yellow Lake on eBay. It’s a UK slate and very affordable yet a very good finisher.
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My understanding is that dragons would only roughly equate to 8Kish. There are much finer welsh slates. I had a couple over the years.Inigo Jones sell the Dragons tongue.
Honing Stones Archives - Inigo Jones
An invaluable aid to the General Handyman, Gardener or the user of Specialist Cutting Tools.
The short answer is yes, if you learn how to use it to it's full potential.
Don't listen to people who try to assign grit numbers to stones like this.
After 8k you are primarily refining the apex. The razor is not getting significantly sharper after this.
If all I had was an OK slate and a strop I would be shaving just fine.
You can't buy a good edge.
Never found Dragon' Tongue to equal 8k, not ever. The marketing hype on those stones was ridiculous.
AJ sold a purple slate he picked up in reclamation yards. Original quarry was unknown but proximity suggested they could have been Llyn Melynllyn. I have had several; all finer than Dragon's Tongue but still lacking as a finisher.
Llyn Melynllyn translates to 'Yellow Lake" but not all stones in "Yellow Lake" boxes are purple or good finishers. There is a huge variation in slate color and quality. Recently had a Black/Grey one that was like a Dragon Tongue, very middle of mid-range stone. From time to time there is a seller on auction sites selling purple Llyn Melynllyn but the material looks 'off'. Could be the pix, or it could be purple slate from a different source.
AJ's purple stones were not all that consistent though, so some were better than others.
The alleged 15k stone he sold was not 15k, the purple slates were better IMO.
If I had to have a Welsh stone for a finisher for some reason, I'd probably go for one of the current black 'ink spot' Water of Ayr stones. Still not the bees knees of finishers but from memory comparison they're a slight cut above those typical slates. They seem to be authentic and without doubt of origin.
AJ sold a purple slate he picked up in reclamation yards. Original quarry was unknown but proximity suggested they could have been Llyn Melynllyn. I have had several; all finer than Dragon's Tongue but still lacking as a finisher.
Llyn Melynllyn translates to 'Yellow Lake" but not all stones in "Yellow Lake" boxes are purple or good finishers. There is a huge variation in slate color and quality. Recently had a Black/Grey one that was like a Dragon Tongue, very middle of mid-range stone. From time to time there is a seller on auction sites selling purple Llyn Melynllyn but the material looks 'off'. Could be the pix, or it could be purple slate from a different source.
AJ's purple stones were not all that consistent though, so some were better than others.
The alleged 15k stone he sold was not 15k, the purple slates were better IMO.
If I had to have a Welsh stone for a finisher for some reason, I'd probably go for one of the current black 'ink spot' Water of Ayr stones. Still not the bees knees of finishers but from memory comparison they're a slight cut above those typical slates. They seem to be authentic and without doubt of origin.
Keep an eye out for a Black "Yellow Lake" stone.
Those are what AJ claimed to be selling for one of the three options (I think the middle one... he claimed the green was the finest if I remember right).
They are a vintage stone out of the UK and usually go for $20-40+ shipping for an 8x2.
There is another stone in the "Yellow Lake" boxes, much less frequently... which we generally call a "grecian"... that's green and who knows... maybe that's what he was selling as his green stone. Those are pretty comparable to/maybe are Lynn Idwals.
They come up less frequently, and maybe sell for a bit more if they're obvious... but most of the time it's a surprise when you get one because the stones are dirty/pictures are poor.
As mentioned above... Dragons Tongue is still mined & sold by UK hardware stores, and I think that was his coarsest of the three stone set.
This page has a good image of the black Yellow Lake and box. Box is also red sometimes... and also 1/2" thick instead of 1" thick sometimes. I think AJ actually created repro/fake boxes for his stones for a brief period... cant remember... maybe they were blue? so he certainly felt this was the material he was selling.
naturalwhetstones.com
They are decently common. I see them about as often as Thuris or Vintage coticules on eBay.
Those are what AJ claimed to be selling for one of the three options (I think the middle one... he claimed the green was the finest if I remember right).
They are a vintage stone out of the UK and usually go for $20-40+ shipping for an 8x2.
There is another stone in the "Yellow Lake" boxes, much less frequently... which we generally call a "grecian"... that's green and who knows... maybe that's what he was selling as his green stone. Those are pretty comparable to/maybe are Lynn Idwals.
They come up less frequently, and maybe sell for a bit more if they're obvious... but most of the time it's a surprise when you get one because the stones are dirty/pictures are poor.
As mentioned above... Dragons Tongue is still mined & sold by UK hardware stores, and I think that was his coarsest of the three stone set.
This page has a good image of the black Yellow Lake and box. Box is also red sometimes... and also 1/2" thick instead of 1" thick sometimes. I think AJ actually created repro/fake boxes for his stones for a brief period... cant remember... maybe they were blue? so he certainly felt this was the material he was selling.
Yellow Lake Oilstone / Welsh Slate/ Dragons Tongue - Natural Whetstones
The Yellow Lake Oilstone was sold by AB Salmen as a finishing hone and sourced from multiple different mines around Wales in the UK.
naturalwhetstones.com
They are decently common. I see them about as often as Thuris or Vintage coticules on eBay.
AJ's marketing put the black/green slate @ 15k, and it wasn't. He said it was his 'finest. More of a burnisher and not a good one IME.
The Purple slate was sold as Llyn M but never proven as such and I think he assigned it 12k, which it wasn't but I considered it to be a plausible finisher. I liked the green spotted ones.
The black slate, at least for a while, was claimed to be a Dragon's Tongue. Was never clear whether he actually sourced them from Inigo Jones. Like Salms, who packaged Yellow Lake stones, AJ was known to just substitute whatever he found into his offerings. I recall him 'rating' the black-ish slate lower in grit than the Purple stone. That may have changed over the years but the stage was, corse to fine, Black, Purple, Green/Black.
All of those slates are all over the place. Most slate deposits are actually. The DTs can be soft and grey or harder and black and anywhere in the middle. Same for the YL oil stones in the various shades of grey they come in. The boxed purple YL stones seemed to have been fairly consistent and plausible as finishers, but the sample size I've experienced is not so large. The darker YL (blacks and greys) variants have not impressed me for honing razors. Decent enough for tools but it's no wonder why they were pushed out of the picture by Arks and Hindos when they became available.
Meant to clarify above but it timed out. I'm aware that Wales and Scotland are two different places, would have been better to have referred to wanting a "UK Slate" and not a "Welsh stone" in that last paragraph.
The Purple slate was sold as Llyn M but never proven as such and I think he assigned it 12k, which it wasn't but I considered it to be a plausible finisher. I liked the green spotted ones.
The black slate, at least for a while, was claimed to be a Dragon's Tongue. Was never clear whether he actually sourced them from Inigo Jones. Like Salms, who packaged Yellow Lake stones, AJ was known to just substitute whatever he found into his offerings. I recall him 'rating' the black-ish slate lower in grit than the Purple stone. That may have changed over the years but the stage was, corse to fine, Black, Purple, Green/Black.
All of those slates are all over the place. Most slate deposits are actually. The DTs can be soft and grey or harder and black and anywhere in the middle. Same for the YL oil stones in the various shades of grey they come in. The boxed purple YL stones seemed to have been fairly consistent and plausible as finishers, but the sample size I've experienced is not so large. The darker YL (blacks and greys) variants have not impressed me for honing razors. Decent enough for tools but it's no wonder why they were pushed out of the picture by Arks and Hindos when they became available.
Meant to clarify above but it timed out. I'm aware that Wales and Scotland are two different places, would have been better to have referred to wanting a "UK Slate" and not a "Welsh stone" in that last paragraph.
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I'll explain a few things, given it's a subject I know quite a bit about...
1.) The 'normal' type of Yellow Lake Oilstone is a blue slate quarried in Abellefenni by Inigo Jones and sold to AB Salmen.
2.) The Dragon's Tongue stones sold by Inigo Jones today are the same stone, from the same quarry.
3.) As @Gamma said - the modern Inigo Jones Dragon's Tongue tends to be (ime) slightly coarser grained than the old Yellow Lake version. To put some arbitrary numbers on it you might be looking at 6-7k vs 8-9k. But as I said - they are exactly the same stone, from the same quarry.
4.) There are quite a number of different stones sold as 'Yellow Lake Oilstone'. What I've said above refers only to the most common type. There are purple Yellow Lakes, there are Green novaculite Yellow Lakes, &c.
5.) Perhaps the best type of Yellow Lake I've come across in razor finishing terms is the one that @SliceOfLife mentioned above. This type is quite comparable to Thuringians in terms of finish level, maybe not quite as high as some of the hard dark Thuris, but a similar ballpark. Unfortunately though it's near impossible to ID from internet ebay pics, and it's not as simple as just saying it's 'darker'. It's a very marginally different colour; a dark grey slate, not a dark blue one. In the pictures below the stone on the left is the grey type, the middle is the blue type, and the right is a modern Inigo Jones Dragon's Tongue ie same as the middle. You can see how different angles affect the visual appearance, because of the mica. I've tried my very best to emphasize the difference here, but natural variations, and lighting and stuff, means that it is genuinely pretty much impossible to tell them apart unless you have in hand (sorry!)
7.) For a significant amount of time during the c.19th, a relatively small area of mid to northern Wales produced more quarried slate than anywhere else in the world. There are hundreds and hundreds of old quarries. And when you have stone quarried for building - you probably also have offcuts used as whetting stones. If you have an old Welsh slate, that doesn't have distinctive patterns like the Nantlle Valley or Glanrafon stones - you'll never know exactly where it came from.
8.) The very finest Welsh slates seem to be grey and purple, rather than green or blue. That rule doesn't always hold; there are plenty of coarse Welsh purple slates, and plenty of fine green ones. It’s just a generalisation.
1.) The 'normal' type of Yellow Lake Oilstone is a blue slate quarried in Abellefenni by Inigo Jones and sold to AB Salmen.
2.) The Dragon's Tongue stones sold by Inigo Jones today are the same stone, from the same quarry.
3.) As @Gamma said - the modern Inigo Jones Dragon's Tongue tends to be (ime) slightly coarser grained than the old Yellow Lake version. To put some arbitrary numbers on it you might be looking at 6-7k vs 8-9k. But as I said - they are exactly the same stone, from the same quarry.
4.) There are quite a number of different stones sold as 'Yellow Lake Oilstone'. What I've said above refers only to the most common type. There are purple Yellow Lakes, there are Green novaculite Yellow Lakes, &c.
5.) Perhaps the best type of Yellow Lake I've come across in razor finishing terms is the one that @SliceOfLife mentioned above. This type is quite comparable to Thuringians in terms of finish level, maybe not quite as high as some of the hard dark Thuris, but a similar ballpark. Unfortunately though it's near impossible to ID from internet ebay pics, and it's not as simple as just saying it's 'darker'. It's a very marginally different colour; a dark grey slate, not a dark blue one. In the pictures below the stone on the left is the grey type, the middle is the blue type, and the right is a modern Inigo Jones Dragon's Tongue ie same as the middle. You can see how different angles affect the visual appearance, because of the mica. I've tried my very best to emphasize the difference here, but natural variations, and lighting and stuff, means that it is genuinely pretty much impossible to tell them apart unless you have in hand (sorry!)
7.) For a significant amount of time during the c.19th, a relatively small area of mid to northern Wales produced more quarried slate than anywhere else in the world. There are hundreds and hundreds of old quarries. And when you have stone quarried for building - you probably also have offcuts used as whetting stones. If you have an old Welsh slate, that doesn't have distinctive patterns like the Nantlle Valley or Glanrafon stones - you'll never know exactly where it came from.
8.) The very finest Welsh slates seem to be grey and purple, rather than green or blue. That rule doesn't always hold; there are plenty of coarse Welsh purple slates, and plenty of fine green ones. It’s just a generalisation.
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I never had the purple one so I don’t know. I had 2 of the one that was known as “welsh thuringian” and both of them were great. I would put them up approaching 15k. As I know you are aware assigning grit equivalents to natural stones is kind of vague and kind of on a spectrum.
I must’ve gotten really lucky with mine.
I got a 5 inch x 1 inch piece of his 12k one for about £15 as my first natural.
The stone came with a rough surface and didn’t work well.
A year later i lapped it flat and tried again.
Smoothing the surface with the rubbing stone supplied, helped, then almost glazing the surface with a lot of razor laps made a big difference.
I use it under running water only and I can get great edges off mine, comparable with any other of my stone edges.
A year or so later I ordered an 8x3 chunk of his 15k.
Again, it wasn’t flat and the surface was rough but once sorted I now have a beautiful black slate which I can use like a jnat and take a razor from a 1k king right through to a fine finished edge on just that one stone.
I use mine regularly especially the little 12k piece which is excellent.
I got a 5 inch x 1 inch piece of his 12k one for about £15 as my first natural.
The stone came with a rough surface and didn’t work well.
A year later i lapped it flat and tried again.
Smoothing the surface with the rubbing stone supplied, helped, then almost glazing the surface with a lot of razor laps made a big difference.
I use it under running water only and I can get great edges off mine, comparable with any other of my stone edges.
A year or so later I ordered an 8x3 chunk of his 15k.
Again, it wasn’t flat and the surface was rough but once sorted I now have a beautiful black slate which I can use like a jnat and take a razor from a 1k king right through to a fine finished edge on just that one stone.
I use mine regularly especially the little 12k piece which is excellent.
His grit assignments were a joke, really, in all ways. I think he said Charnwood stones were 10-12k. But then conveniently his green slate was 15k. Mmm..no. But it sold a lot of slate that had a higher profit margin.
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I was a very early customer of AJs. I'm the one who told him his purple slates might be Llyn M and he should check in with Neil Miler about it. That was about 6 months before his shills were pimping his wares on the forums. His hones were, to me, very much meh for the most part. I did get a few nice Charns from him though, and a few Llyn Ids and a very odd white-ish stone what was sorta soft but was great for cutlery. His purple slate stood out but was not enough for me to keep one around. The other slates he sold were just slates. AJ thought the harder slate was a finer by way of hardness so that one became 15k.
I had a few of the Welsh Thuringian stones from him. They weren't very consistent from stone to stone. For sure, a natural stone really can't be given a synthetic grit assignment. But every edge off those WT stones were easily and significantly improved by honing on a 10k or 12k SS or similar. It fell flat next to a Gok 15000. Several guys I know all worked the same progression, all had the same results. Best I can say about the WT is that they smoothed out the tooth left by a synth hone pretty well. I discussed this with AJ and his responses were as vague as his grit assignments. Sometimes a 'naturalized' synth edge feels sharper to some people, whatever. For a minute or two AJ was selling on Etsy alongside Ebay but it seems he finally got out Its a shame because I used to gift those small 3 slate stone sets to some knife guys once in a while.
Yep. I'm pretty sure the Cwt i Bugial / Shepherd's Hut would never have been used as a honestone in the past. It's too fine for anything apart from the last very last stage of razor honing.
Just something I found at Inigo Jones and asked Roger to cut me up few hones from. And he raised a very quizzical eyebrow, because of how fine grained it is.
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