Thread: I seem to have acquired one of those mysterious yellow french hones

No recomendation Neil , observation ,and exact description. I rarely use oil , liquid soap and water often .
In the past was a mania , everyone used theyre stones with oil , even coticule or thuringians . And the story with the milk and the Cretan hone - i think it is an urban legend . Cretans are oiled stones witch gives them the specific dark color . They impregnate them with machine oil , somethimes even old fried oil , to give the distingtive black color , and because is cheaper .
80 % of the old hones , wich i buy are heavy oiled , sluryed with oil and covered with so called GOO ......
Even after laping you can smel the diesel engine oil on it / M10D /
There was a time that i think this stone was a coticule of some kind , but not so sure now . It is a Fast stone , but not like a coti , the color is similar but not like a coti and the feedback is between coti and slate . BBW reminiscent . I dont know what is it but works well , and they are diferent in grit like the coticules .

It's not sandstone. It's also not molded, it was definitely cut from some mother stone. Strange. I need to do testing in order to see what it has going for it

Originally Posted by kcb5150

I need to do testing in order to see what it has going for it

Definitely. Never seen a stone that looks like it that wasn't coticule, and I haven't exactly seen too many large coarse coticules that were intended for tools. Last one I saw was a huge 8x3x1 inch thick sort of beat up stone sold on ebay, and I hope the person buying it wasn't intending to use it on razors.

Speaking to ppl who seemingly have nearly identical stones the performance seems to fall in between a coti and a thuri but it is able to pull an edge back from a more degraded state than a thuri and bring it back to a shave ready state. It sounds fun.

Fed a couple of blades to it, one that needed more of a touch up than a thuri would be up for, and a truly hollow ground 1xl wostenholm as I wanted to see how the sheffield steel reacted. Very interesting hone. It's harder to raise a slurry with the slurry stone than it is on a thuri, but before long you get a strange mustard colored slurry. If I wanted a really heavy slurry, I would probably use something other than the slurry stone. It brought the worn edge back to hht 4. Under 10x magnification, a very compact, consistent scratch pattern. It also managed to clean up some fizz at the toe that you could see under the loupe as well as some oxidation. Wostenholm I put the most plain jane coti edge on it imaginable and then went to this for dilutions to straight water. Again, hht 4 mostly, I'd say 5 in spots. It has more cutting power than any thuri I have had and it seems to be able to get an edge to a very respectable condition. I don't think this stone is as fine as a thuri, but the edges are very very shave ready. I would go so far as to say it is a more useful hone than a thuri as it has more metal removal capability. I went over a spot I shaved yesterday dry just now and it just went through neck stubble effortlessly. I think I will redo the wostenholm and try it tomorrow. I think I can pull a bit more out of that blade as it has been in disuse for ages, plus I am still not familiar with this rock. What I like most is it has feedback. You get a real tactile sensation of the edge smoothing out on the hone as you go so you don't have to play guessing games when you dilute. I need to see if there is any penalty for remaining at that smooth point prior to dilution and if there are any gains to be had. Also has a super earthy smell as you hone. I can say with utter certainty that it is not a coticule. Fun stone.