Originally Posted by
Neil Miller
Since then Jimmy I have tried to track down these hones in any literature from the 1700s and 1800s without success. It seems, like so many things on the net, that this particular piece of lore was cited by someone and everybody since then has cited that someone's citation!
Even the W. R. Michell reference proves to be anecdotal. His paper (one of the many he wrote) appeared in 1985 and he himself was born in the 1920s, so he has no first hand experience of 1700s or 1800s Sheffield, nor could any of the people he talked to.
I have been able to find references to an unknown yellow stone from near Snowdonia being used to hone razors by Sheffield cutlers, as well as Charnley Forest (Holzapfel), but the inference as far as CFs are concerned is that they were used because of their hardness to 'strike-off' the feather edge that remained on a razor after it came off the grinding wheel, hot for honing as we know it.
Another one of lore which can be referred to is the greenish hard stone found in the pavement and setts of London and much esteemed by Stoddard, a razor maker of Faraday's era who commanded a lot of respect. However, we cannot positively identify what this stone was.
Late 1800s catalogues like A. B. Salmen's give prices for Tam O'Shanters, Water of Ayr, Turkeystones, Yellow Lake Oilstone, Arkansas, Yellow Coticules, etc so these would have been used, though once again there is no definitive text that shows Sheffield razor makers using them.
What is indisputable is that Yorkshire Bilston grindstones were used as wheels to give a coarse finish (as were the natural sandstones that abound in the region) while the Blue Bilston Grindstone was a much harder and finer grit stone, though not of the same degree of fineness as a 'finisher' or polishing stone, at least in the wheel-mounted variety.
BUT in Staffordshire there were several layers of whetstone bilston hones, some quoted to be among the best in the world in an 1834 directory - from one of these layers came a hone that was well capable of grinding razors to a fine edge.
Regards
Neil