Thread: Rock diving

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

It's true, rocks don't smell. What you do smell are the remnants of soil and mold and mildew all all the other stuff that lives in the ground that comes into contact with the rock and remains there who knows how many years until you get it.

Yes BigSpender
I agree with you. Arkansas hard stones do not smell because they are nearly 100% silica, and a very fine type of silica at that. Japanese stones smell because of the binder or clays that make up the body of the stone. This clay was part of the original event that provided the material including the radiolaria, so the clays are integral to the character and nature of the stone. Some japanese sharpening stones have been dug from such a deep level that many of the clays have either been squeezed out or through pressure and the resulting heat transformed, metamorphed into a harder stone. These can still be used by are not so what I call "user friendly".

If you could find natural stones with the grit particle of the arkansas stones, but slightly softer you might be on to something. Oh, also you might look for deposits of material that is associated with sharpening stones, like Kaolin used for making porcelain.

hope this helps, Alx