Thread: Natural Stones: Japanese vs. Jasper vs. Novaculite vs. Chinese Agate/Faux Jade?

Really great shave this morning again, the best of the bunch so far.

Datsots - brings up a good point. I never rubbed a jasper with a jasper, but they should polish each other. In the case of the owyhee jaspers, no water is absorbed (even water displacer/penetrants like WD 40 are not absorbed). I actually wouldn't mind having a porous piece of jasper for tools, but it's probably the kind of thing I'd need to test in person to make sure I didn't just get a stone that had some holes and a bunch of large smooth quartz inclusions.

A different novaculite - a very old bone colored hard arkansas. This one is hand chiseled on the back (suggesting that it's either very old, or at least sort of old and cut by a company that wasn't pike). It's no finer than the prior stone, but I know it wasn't lapped recently.



And the resulting edge:



Come to the conclusion for yourself. Honing with novaculite is different than the broken in chinese hone or the jasper, as it's not as inherently fine as either. you have to be careful not to apply pressure to hope to get the same finish as the jasper hone does. I'll still give the chinese hone one more go later, as I think it can probably do work without the edge damage that it provided.

Edit: the shave was crispy, of the novaculites I've used so far, the two just aren't as fine as the other three stones in terms of shave smoothness and keenness. Still, a very tolerable shave and the linen would bring the edge right up to where it would need to be.

I'm not sure what I'll do next. I'll periodically add pictures to this thread, and eventually do a razor in crox and one with 0.1 iron oxide (I don't use those things, but I do have paddles with them on - iron oxide causes me to get weepers and crox might look better under the scope, but it is no more keen than the three non-novaculite hones here when you take the time with them and use a linen).

Dave, A BIG THANKS to you for time spent and your sharing of information on the various hones and the edges they produced.
I live very close to the mine where the Owyhee Jasper comes from and I have a lot of it on hand. I also have a lot of Willow Creek Jasper.
I know Larry that mines the Willow Creek and he will let me go through his stock, hand picking the nicer slabs.
If I get the time I might cut a piece of the blue/green Owhee Jasper that was on the opposite side of the finished edge of your Owyhee slab.
I also have some Owyhee that it slightly porous that has a tan color.
I have worked on a slightly porous piece for an hour or more with 400 grit wetpaper but it still needs much more work before it is ready for honing.
It was a piece that I found that was naturally very flat but in hindsite I would have been better off running it through the diamond blade on the rocksaw that I have, and then working with the 400 grit paper.
Happy honing to ya!!!

Dave, How do you prep the Owyhee Jasper prior to finish honing with it?
I use a piece of one inch granite counter top that I had cut for baking gread on for a flat surface. I use various grits of wetpaper on that surface to lap with.
Would you think that a final grit of 1200 that is well worn would give a sufficiantly polished surface?

I think that would do it. It's hard to get them lapped so everything is coplanar. If they have any saw marks in them or anything, it takes forever to get them out. I usually get most of them out and then just use them after that, with a focus on flushing the surface of the stone often to make sure any lapped particles don't remain on the surface.

The plainer the stone, the better. It might be my imagination, but I think the green part is a bit more dense and I like it a little better, but both the greenish and tannish parts work well.

I didn't think my jaspers absorbed water at all, but one of the prior posters was right. Mine will absorb water ever so slowly. Not like a synthetic hone, but just a tiny hair faster than the stone would dry off if it didnt' absorb anything.

I kind of like to break my stones in with razors if possible (not so much with an arkansas stone, but you can do it with the jasper) so that I don't get heavy handed with a tool and make a very very slight dip in the middle. That's more a concern on wide stones like the jasper pieces, but once they settle in, I wouldn't want anything smaller. If you have a spyderco fine or UF, that might also make a nice thing to burnish the surface with.

I think you'll be pleased. There isn't anything to lose except time, the stones are almost free. Even if you get some that are a bit too porous for razors, they make great edge aligners and polishers for knives, etc.