Thread: Garage Sale Find: ?

At a neighborhood garage sale this weekend, I came across this stone in a pile of old tools and junk.
I asked the sellers about it and they had no clue of it's origin. For a buck, I snagged it plus a few other odds & ends.

It was a dark stone, covered with grime and dust. I rinsed it off and snapped this shot:

The stone is 1-7/8" wide and 5.0" long; nearly 3/4" thick at its densest part. It shows wear in the middle section on one side.

I brought out my DMT and began lapping and rinsing one side and continued on the sides. This revealed the following:


Obviously a double-sided two-grit stone, difficult to distinguish in the original found state. Much greater wear on the coarser side.




The coarse side is quite 'coarse' (300?) whereas the smoother side (shown close-up below) feels in the neighborhood of a Norton 1k...


The smooth side yields a very thin slurry initially, but with some effort thickens up nicely.


So for a buck, I have a new stone.
I don't know if I have anything of practical value with regards to razor honing until I do some side-by-side tests with some other stones.

It's probably a dual grit Norton or Carborundum (silicon carbide),,,,, by the measurements probably a Norton JB45,,,,,course & fine,,, but,,, the course could be 180 grit by the charts of Norton, maybe as high as 280 grit & it's hard to pin down the fine side,, Norton puts it at 400,,,, but I'm trying to find Carborundum charts that put their dual fine side at between 600 & 800.

I doubt it is 1000k, but who knows


EZ-Off it for 40 minutes to draw out all the crudd & she might reveal more to you.

A good solid stone for working up an EDC knife,,,, IMO.

Yeah, I would begin testing it with a knife before I took a razor to it.

You may feel like fine one is 1k but don't hone your razors on, you can use it for knifes maybe. Sorry.
The road to Eschers is paved with Carborundum and Norton stones.

Originally Posted by livio

You may feel like fine one is 1k but don't hone your razors on, you can use it for knifes maybe. Sorry.
The road to Eschers is paved with Carborundum and Norton stones.

Oh no doubt this will not get a razor—maybe a knife or two.
I have the Escher; this was just a curiosity…a $1 curiosity.