Thread: how to recognize a natural stone

I'm still new to honing and stones so i was wandering how one recognizes a natural stone? i've had the opportunity the last couple weekends to go through some boxes of stones and picked up this one.

the thing that made me think that is was natural was the appearance of saw marks on the end.(i tried to get a picture but it didn't come out visible), the one side is badly dished but the other side is flat. it has some scratch like marks on it. do i need to lap it?
thanks for your help.

Dunno about whether it is a natural, somebody will be along ........ lapping .... I draw a pencil grid on the stone. Like when you were a kid playing tic-tac-toe. Then lap a few strokes and see what part of the grid is removed. Tells you how close to flat the stone is.

A natural stone will tend to have more color variation be it subtle or exaggerated. If you find a stone that has consistent coloration, 99.999% of the time it will be "manufactured". There are some "naturals" tho that do have consistent coloration so it can be a bit confusing. I usually just look for distinguishing features such as tattoos or piercings.

It can certainly help to know if a stone is natural or synthetic but in the end it's more important to know how it works and how to get the best out of it. Does it need a lot of soaking or just a spray of water? What happens if you raise a slurry? How quickly does it cut? etc. All fun things to play with on the road to knowing your stone.

Having said that, saw marks are usually a dead giveaway that a stone is a natural one. As are, as has been said, any indications of a lack of uniformity be it colour, consistency, geometry (apart from the dishing, of course) etc. Synthetic hones are generally very uniform and homogenous being, as they are, manufactured usually in an industrial automated process.

James.

Yea today I learned one of my stones that I thought was manmade I learned is natural.
I was honing a razor on it and thought it was manmade cause how just how fast it was cutting.
But the more and more I was using it with the correct non drying honing oil the cleaner and cleaner it was getting.
Then I started to notice it has a huge color varying.

Synthetic stones are kind of like a cake. You mix the ingredients and and I guess bake it in an oven probably under pressure too. Most of these stones will have a look to them under magnification because of the way they are made. Natural stones are just rocks so you will see some variation.

Having said that there are some naturals that can look like synthetics and vice versa. probably if you cut a natural in half you will know-har har.

Simple,,,, if the color on top of the stone matches the color on the bottom of the stone, it's a natural,,,,

Originally Posted by guitstik

Are you holding you coticle right now ?

I would use the known literature to identify because a lot of naturals have properties to be naturals....

This can be a certain colour variation, any special pattern, swirls, inclusions sometimes glittering or golden and for shure sawmarks....

Please start your read with Henk Bos Grinding and Honing Part 1-4 because its the most relevant i say "Literature" out there and Henk did a great Job and deserves it that these parts are well communicated...

http://bosq.home.xs4all.nl/

So start with these and youll have a lot to read and see first...