Thread: NOS Thuringians on ebay

Well, I picked one of these up as well, wanted to reserve judgment on it until I was able to try it out.

So I took an old Sheffield wedge that I've used to test nearly all of my hones (tang says "Geo. Manby & Co. Late with B. J. Eyre & Co. Sheffield" probably late 1800's) and gave it a few passes on the 4k Norton to start with a clean slate. I then moved to the 8k Norton with slurry, finished with just water. I lapped the Thuringian before attempting anything, it took about 30 min. I started the passes on the Thuringian with a pretty thick slurry, and it cut very well, not too fast but not slow at all. Then cleaned it off and made a few passes with only water, felt very smooth, checked under magnification and repeated until there were uniform striations.

Result was very nice. I would definitely rank this as an equal to the new Coticules as the scratch pattern was almost identical.

But there's more. I've been doing some tests with using various hones dry, and this is where I was very surprised. The "new" Thuringian put a mirror finish on the old Sheffield steel that was indistinguishable from that of my Chinese 12k. This hone bested my vintage Coticule!

I didn't believe it at first, so I went back and did the same progression again, only I used the vintage Coticule to finish instead of the Thuringian. Results were great, but then I did a few passes (well more than a few, enough to make a difference) on the Thuringian dry and the finish improved visibly. And there was almost no distinguishable difference between the finish of the Thuringian and the 12K!

I have been going back and forth for the last 3 hours between the new Coticule, the vintage one, the Thuringian and the Chinese 12K and am getting consistent results that go from worst to best: new Coticule, vintage Coticule, Thuringian, and Chinese 12k barely coming in first over the Thuringian.

I'll try it with some different blades to confirm these results, but for now this is where it stands. though it was a little pricey considering Kees has the NOS ones for less $, which I'm anxiously waiting to receive and test as well.

I also covered my bases and bought one of Kees. Let me know what you think?

Thanks!

Forgot to put in the above post that I also did a progression of stones that ended with a translucent arkansas, but the resulting edge was nowhere near as fine as the four finishing stones I did mention, so it was quickly ruled out. A nice stone for sure, but not comparable enough for the test I was doing.