Thread: Anybody have any ideas as to what this might be?

Oxalic acid is mostly used to clean iron stains off. In the lab you need some HCL-dilute is enough. The vinegar should give some reaction though if it's limestone. For hardness You can use a chunk of quartz if you have it to test at level 7 or some feldspar for level 6. Apatite for level 5 Fluorite for 4 and calcite for 3.

Don't have any of those, but I can probably get some muriatic acid from where I used to work - think they have a jug. I've also read that some limestones need to be crushed to show much reactivity, so I'll try that too. Would granite give me any idea of hardness? I have some of that around.

Originally Posted by eKretz

Don't have any of those, but I can probably get some muriatic acid from where I used to work - think they have a jug. I've also read that some limestones need to be crushed to show much reactivity, so I'll try that too. Would granite give me any idea of hardness? I have some of that around.

Probably not because granite is typically comprised of quartz, feldspar and mica. They sell inexpensive kits for the mohs hardness scale. Educational stores have them. I'll bet toys are us has it too.

I just tried taking a rubbing stone and lapped the hone and the rubbing stone both with the 400 Atoma then used the rubbing stone to smooth the surface of the hone. Slapped on the 2 layers of tape that I used last and gave it about 40 laps on a very thin layer of oil. Cleaned everything up and stropped 10 laps on the nylon web and 50 on plain leather. Got a clean HHT4 or HHT5 on a hair root in and root out - no difference. Now I need to grow some beard so I can try it out.

It's a nice stone, and it seems to leave a nice polishing. Now all you have to do is, find the name of the indigenous people who lived there, name it after them, and you're good to go for selling them

Lol. Not sure how you'd find out the indigenous people for a glacial stone - it could've come from anywhere I'd think.

I'm actually sending a sample stone to someone pretty well known to get checked out. If they are really worth a darn to someone more than me I might offer up a few if anyone actually wants one. I look at it more like a fun little experiment than anything.

K just had a nice full shave after letting my face rest for a few days. OUTSTANDING shave. WTG was really probably the closest WTG I've ever had, and ATG for no irritation whatsoever and BBS. The rubbing stone after lapping with the Atoma 400 seems to be the way to go, then just a couple drops of oil and wipe it across the stone with a bit of lint-free wipe or paper towel. The razor hasn't touched anything but the stone, the cloth strop and SRD plain English Bridle hanging leather strop. One of the best shaves I've ever had.

Here are some photos of some more trials today with slurry on water. You can see with the slurry it finishes up as a hazy mirror. I finished this test piece with figure eights. Really a neat stone, wish I knew what the heck it was. I started this test with a 2,000 Shapton Pro then went straight to the new stone with an Atoma 400 slurry. This stone has really good feel on the water/slurry, I really like it. Took about 150 laps IIRC to remove every last one of the Shapton 2,000 scratches. It goes much faster if I start out at a 5,000 or 8,000 finish. I'm a little leery of trying to finish a razor on slurry though as I've never done it before.

When I first started rock hounding I tested the ability to cut steel on knives. Your piece of test steel is interesting. Is it tempered steel? If you are not wanting to use a razor use a knife or a chisel. Chisels have such a wide bevel that the scratch pattern shows quite well.

Lol, yes of course it's heat treated. It would be kind of pointless otherwise. The item in question is a contact point for a dial indicator made by a company called Starrett. It can only just be scratched with a metal cutting file, which indicates that it is below the hardness of the file, (usually ~65HRc) but not by much. They need to be very hard as they are often dragged across steel surfaces in a gritty environment (machine shop) and otherwise would wear out in a matter of hours. I have also used knives and chisels for testing, and as indicated have already shaved a couple times with a razor honed on the stone. I actually started my testing on the metal cutting file, to make sure the stone could cut something that is glass hard.

The reason I use the test piece I use is that it is easy to keep flat and aligned to the stone, and I have a couple so I can compare finishes from stone to stone also.