Thread: Stones I've cut but not yet finished¬

I totally agree with what you two said, and I must say I have gotten dang goood at picking finishers just by looking at them unfinished just from experience. There is a lot of limestone in kentucky, any idea of how it works at honing? It is one stone I havent looked at for possible mid low grit possibilities and have no idea how it would work.

Originally Posted by DennisBarberShop

I totally agree with what you two said, and I must say I have gotten dang goood at picking finishers just by looking at them unfinished just from experience. There is a lot of limestone in kentucky, any idea of how it works at honing? It is one stone I havent looked at for possible mid low grit possibilities and have no idea how it would work.

because limestone is so wide spread and has been worked for centuries by masons I would think it must not be of much honing value or the old ones would have had some left around. I have never heard of a limestone hone.

Originally Posted by RezDog

because limestone is so wide spread and has been worked for centuries by masons I would think it must not be of much honing value or the old ones would have had some left around. I have never heard of a limestone hone.

from my experience with rock climbing in lime stone I know that it can be relatively hard and polishes up to a high sheen, I doubt whether it has any homogeneous quality to it

maybe next time I'm at Freyr I'll pick up something :P

Sebastian has kindly lent me his Diorite stone to use, so I thought I'd make some comments here, fwiw.

The usable surface arrived with a fair amount of polish, reminding me of a black hard Arkansas. I tried his original recommendation to use water and 100-200 laps with the stone, but found that the water kept beading. Adding a drop or two of dish-washing detergent helped, but still it was not uniform, more soap was needed. Perhaps a slurry would help to emulsify things, but I did not try this.

After stropping, the shave off the stone with a razor that had previously been honed with a coticule showed improvement as to sharpness, but the edge seemed erratic--harsh at times, not so harsh at times. I put this down to my difficulty in keeping the water equally spread on the surface. Oil, I felt, would work much better here.

With an identical razor, I reset the bevel and worked my way up to a preliminary passing of the HHT with the coticule. Knowing well that this edge would be smooth but not quite sharp enough for me, I placed two-three drops of Dan's honing oil on the surface of the Diorite stone, and honed with it for several dozen laps. Sensation again was like a black hard Arkansas--brittle, almost like glass. No real swarf generation, perhaps a trace at most, with excellent comparative feedback along the edge during a slow pass. Subsequent HHT showed improvement from off the coticule, and the bevel looked brighter when viewed with a loupe. Surface while honing differed from a black Arkansas in the sense that it was not as uniform, there being some pitting with the Diorite, but it definitely refused to absorb oil, which was remaining on the surface throughout.

After stropping, the edge during shaving was sharper than a coticule. It is what a call a "lively" edge, a bit crisp perhaps, without being unduly harsh. I had to be careful with it, whereas with a coticule or a black hard Arkansas, I could be a bit more cavalier. All in all a nice stone, and if I were living in Britain and wanted to adopt a localized approach to honing, I would be very happy to have such a stone in my arsenal. Very pretty to look at as well.