Thread: Old Brazilian Water Hones "Piedra Brazil" (Schist)

Originally Posted by Martin103

Looking at the label of the Brazilian hone, it seems to me that this is a natural stone from Brazil as you can see on the label "Sole Proprietor de la Diamanta quarries".

Tc blade has a Brazilian Black slate on his webpage.

I have an Imperia La Roccia hone that looks a lot like the Brazilian water hone pictured. I know that the sellers of the ILR are not forthcoming about the geographical source of their hones. SRP forum members have dissed the stones as a result. I always wondered whether the stones might be sourced from somewhere in South America; after all, we have hones from Europe, Asia, North America, and South Africa, so why do we not have hones from South America? Perhaps we already do. If ILR stones are from South America, I have NO evidence that they do, I can understand why the sellers would not identify the source of the stones. Just like we make fun of Chinese Guangxi hones, calling them PHIG, we would likely do the same with a hone from Brazil or another South American country. Hones should be evaluated based on their performance rather than on their country of origin.

BTW, like all natural hones, no matter what the source, ILR hones vary in quality. I have one that is an excellent finisher and another that is more of a prefinisher. I can get better edges off my ILR than I get from my Coticule, but that does not mean that all ILR hones are better than all Coticules. I am just comparing two specific stones in my possession.

here are some pictures of a few brazillian hones from my collection. all bought by my father about 40 years ago. as you can see they differ in color and texture. some of them needs lapping