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

eKretz, if you would want to know the type of rock it would in all probability be helpfull to get some pictures of the surounding in which you've found it, seeing how the glacier has cut into the mountain might tell us something.

Also, I don't know where this glacier is exacly, if it is in the Swiss Alps you could check Alpine climbing books out there, they usually have a section containing a detailed geology map and discription

Lol, there's no mountain, these rocks were probably deposited as till by a glacier near Lake Michigan a very long time ago. The lake they were found near is a type of lake called a kettle lake IIRC. I don't think there will be any way to tell by looking at the site.

I did a quick freehand sharpening on a chisel today with this stone, turned out pretty nice. The photo highlighting the scratch pattern is lit with 450W of fluorescent lighting at just the right angle to show the scratches, so again, it doesn't accurately reflect the surface finish - that is why I try to post multiple photos with different angles on these.

Here's some test results from Alex Gilmore with his 600x microscope, pretty darn cool, wish I had one of those babies. It would appear that his results are similar to mine, in that this stone can put on a nice finish and really smooth the bevel, but it does leave some very shallow scratches behind kind of randomly also. I can't feel them in the shave though, so I guess it's not a big deal. This photo is just a preliminary test to give an idea that the stone is cutting and polishing the bevel, although it clearly is not anywhere near as fast as a JNat. Many thanks to Alex for offering to test the stone out for me!

Here are some microscope shots from Slice of Life showing first an 8k edge just starting to be refined by the stone, then after some more honing showing the sharpening of the edge of the edge developing, at 400x magnification. He reports this taking quite a while, slow work but obviously cutting very finely. I have had my best shaves using a layer of tape with the stone to get right to the "edge of the edge" and concentrate the work there a la Tim Zowada. It seems this will probably be the way to go with the stone for finishing as it is so fine it will take a long while to do the job otherwise. It looks as though it will remove so little material on tape though that it won't require a whole lot of material removal to reset the bevel afterward. The finish seems very dependent on the surfacing of the stone so far, the smoother the better the finish but also slower cutting.

Here are a few more scope shots showing a prefinish on an 8k then ~30 strokes with 1 layer of tape on the natural stone at various points along the edge. Very nice looking edge.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

You all know, there are some stones that do float. One I can think of off hand is sepiolite which is what meerschaum is made from.

Have any of you tried that as a hone? har har.

didnt sherlock holmes have a meerschaum pipe? [emoji1]

Originally Posted by Blistersteel

didnt sherlock holmes have a meerschaum pipe? [emoji1]

The stuff is pretty popular. You see them in pipe shops all carved up. Most are made in Turkey which is where most of the mineral comes from.

Most of that area around lake Michigan was under water during the last ice Age. Those lakes were once one huge lake called lake Agassiz and as they melted they formed the present Great Lakes plus many others in Canada and the U.S.

If you do some research you can find the beaches formed as the lake retreated. Locate them and you might find some interesting rocks.

I think this stone may be a variety of quartzite, BTW if anyone's interested. Mostly composed of silica.

Here are some shots of my HSS (High Speed Steel) test piece convex bevels from the eNat. The area immediately behind the bevel is a near mirror finish from a very hard and fine JNat. The first two photos are through a 30x microscope, one showing the hair is exposed for the brightness of the bevel and you can see the reflection of the hair. The rest are just close up shots with my camera. The test piece is approximately 1/2" wide, with around an 1/8" bevel width.