Thread: Moughton Whetstone.

@iceny: more pictures of your trip and the nice landscape and for shure of whetstones are well appreciated :-)

It's odd that you live somewhere most of your life and always take it for granted. I would have never even thought about taking a camera under normal circumstances, The landscape is just too normal for me to even register it!

Originally Posted by Iceni

It's odd that you live somewhere most of your life and always take it for granted. I would have never even thought about taking a camera under normal circumstances, The landscape is just too normal for me to even register it!

I think that happens to most of us...we here also have a very nice region and a beautiful landscape...often i do not see the beauty as its gotten normal....

Taking a camera on trips often helps to see the landscape in another view then without...

Nowadays, with the cell phones, most of us always have a camera. Gives a new meaning to "you're on candid camera." Have to really watch what you say and do nowadays.

Originally Posted by Iceni

It's odd that you live somewhere most of your life and always take it for granted. I would have never even thought about taking a camera under normal circumstances, The landscape is just too normal for me to even register it!

New York City born and raised. Ask me if I have ever been to the Statue of Liberty
And I still want one of those rocks. I can cut it as needed

Been out today to pick up tools for this one.

Got a nice pneumatic tyre sack barrow. It's solid framed, 1/2 inch shaft, with 10 inch steel hubbed wheels. I'm hoping it'll allow me to get a little bit more stone from my visit.

I've also picked up a brick hammer, and a nice podger.

Other than the spoon I think I'm all set for this one

Just remember I called dibs first haha. Really though good luck and take lots of pics of the area, would love to see where they come from...as a rockhound I'm excited!

As one of the people who were in the location my advice is "It is nothing like quarries where you have your CFs from". Enjoy the walk and keep safe.

Any chance that your yellow hone from Snowdonia supposed to be quarried on Lleyn peninsula?
I thing next time I am visiting inlaws in Woodham I will give Neil ring and organise some consultation.

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

I've been looking at the pathways to and from the site.

There are multiple routes.

The most common used goes over Moughton scar from Horton. I've already decided this is not the route to take. It's fine for a walk. But the ground is still heavy limestone and bog. I don't want to add slopes that are potentially dangerous with weight into that mix as well.

The second route goes from the village of Austwick via white stone lane. There doesn't look to be parking on this route. And the walk is pretty long and goes down the side of Moughton scar. The problem there been the distance and the fact it'll be running on the spring line. I expect even in mid summer to have a wet footing on the paths.

The third route and the one I'm hoping to take goes from a farm on the opposite side of the stream. You follow crummack lane to it's terminus at the farm, Then hop a few fields and a bridge to the site. This distance is shorter by a fair margin. I've got a solid local accent, and buttering up a farmer to let me dump a vehicle for an hour shouldn't be a problem. Plus my mum can do the talking, She's a 5'10" blonde bombshell and normally gets everything she wants... Plus she has the "gift of the gab". Provided the farmer knows we know the field rules, then this shouldn't be a problem.

There is also something else I might have a look at in the valley. By my reckoning anywhere where a spring emerges from under the scars should mean that the MS rock is at surface level. I'm wanting to walk a few of the other becks to have a look and see if this is true. If it is there might be better and closer places to pick the same rock up from. Perhaps even just off the road.

I am not sure if the road to the farm is not for private use of the farm only. Let us know how deep was the water.