Thread: Vintage Hone, Was my great Grandads, And predates him by some years.

I just had a shave off el-cheapo and it's the best I've had so far. I'm going to get a better razor I think at Christmas, So i might post that off to Neil Miller to be honed so I have a benchmark to work from. It may also have something to do with my creme as well This is the first shave I have done with TOBS eton, I've been using the sandlewood one and there may be a difference, or it may be a scent induced placebo

I've got the camera charging now so I'll try get pictures up after work tomorrow in natural light. Lets hope it's not raining so I can use the garden table

On a side note, What stone should I look at to reset my bevel. I can't sit for a few hours every time I want to hone so what grit and make stone should I look at. I've looked at the norton 4K/8K stone, Is there anything else I should consider. At some point I will make the progression to vintage blades as well I think. So I'll probably need something that can work a shagged blade.

Thanks for sharing Iceni. It is good you are trying to repurpose this stone. When you say it is greener, does it look like the pic below? This is some form of Ayrshire stone. It is very hard and relatively thin. Just curious but when you say it is slow what are you comparing it to?

FYI; If you are working with Neil, he carries the King Icebear 1/6 combo that would set a spiffy bevel. Better bevel setter than the ubiquitous Norton 4/8.
MIke

That Ayrshire stone looks far closer than any of the Arkansas stones I've seen. I should have said I live in the UK, And so have my grand/great grandparents. North Yorkshire to be more precise. And none of them went off to war since they were blacksmiths. Once I get some more images up I think it will be easier to place. I've stripped some of the gunk off the side of the stone, and found one of the ends of the wood block is actually broken and pops out so you can see the full end of it. It's a lot chunkier than I thought it was going to be, At over 1 inch thick. It also has that odd iridescence a little like tigers eye forming in the face, and it's beginning to gain a fingerprint in the gloss as well.

Got some pictures

"IF" it's an Arkansas stone:

I have at least 11. I don't think it's a Surgical Black, because it's not really any shade of Black. However, the density of either Translucent or True Hard Arkansas is the same, so the color thing doesn't really matter much; except that visibly Translucent stones cost more. I think it's likely a dark murky shade of True Hard or Translucent. Those come in White, Grey, Pink, even Black. (I have 4 Black stones, and 1 of them is a Black Translucent.)

It looks like your stone is well worn. I'd like to see if the color brightens up any with continued polishing.

I think the face wear is actually the fact I used wet and dry paper to lap it. I think the deeper looking scratches are loose erratics from the paper. When you feel the stone it actually feels very smooth. It also doesn't help with the fact the pictures are taken pretty close and using pretty hard side lighting to try get that fingerprint to show up on the camera.

1KnifeGuy4U have any of your stones got metal flecks in them? Those last couple of pictures are actually of a very bright one in the face, there are others as well all over the stone. It's very bright metal, I need a microscope I think to have a proper look at them.

1KnifeGuy4U have any of your stones got metal flecks in them?

For the purpose of full disclosure; I'm a knife guy, but not a straight razor guy yet. (I have a beard.) I do however love the stones, and I mainly chime in when the thread is about Arkansas stones; but I occasionally post on other topics too.

None of my Hard Arkansas, Black Arkansas, or Translucent Arkansas stones have any metal flecks that I'm aware of.

However, I wouldn't be shocked if under high magnification my largest Soft Arkansas 8x2x1 were shown to have some surprising particles. It occassionally releases gritty feeling particles, and seems to be just a bit more coarse than my other Soft Arkansas stones. It exhibits some of the same "pitting" or tiny voids present in the surface of your stone. Though mine is a Soft Arkansas, and your stone is harder than that.