2 more inbound... Thuri, and Coticule.

I'm loving Ebay these past few weeks. I got that lovely La Lorraine, and now I just won a rather nice little Thuri.

I think it's one of the celebrated water stone types. The box looks to be correct and the stone looks to be an original fit. Not sure about the grade but I got it for a steal £20, So grade doesn't matter so much.

I also have a nice select Coti on the way from Ardennes coticule. It's a 150x50 select stone that had a corner missing so had a price reduction.

I'll pop some pictures up of the coti later when it lands, the ones on the site were a little small and didn't give away a lot about the surface and patterns in it.

Back on the thuri, What I think I'm looking at is a light green or med grey type with some fossil inclusions. Original box, Missing the label, that I would expect was the non-Escher celebrated water hone one. I think the joints on the box and the lower quality finish would back that up. Most of the Escher boxes I've seen have a slightly different corner join, and a nicer internal finish on the box. The clasp looks original, as does the hinge but I don't think they can give anything away in terms of origin.

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SMALL NATURAL SHARPENING STONE IN HINGED WOODEN BOX | eBay

Nice stone either way. Post pics of the others of course. We all love pictures!

I was looking at that stone as well but shipping would still have made it kind of pricy, I hope for you that those fosil inclusions don't degrade the edge

I have one similar with inclusions...it made no difference except a thin soft bit like a peanut skin occasionally surfaces and goes away.
~Richard

My yellow/green bout has a few of the fossil inclusions as well. Provided they don't affect honing then I actually think they make the stone look better, no one wants a plain grey block!

The coticule arrived today. Looks very nice I'll snap some pictures when I get chance. I won't be able to test it until the start of April as it's my birthday present from the missus. I did take a peek to make sure it arrived all nice and safe, The box is nice, packaging was superb, and I got a huge slurry stone as well, but it looks to be from a different coti layer.

The thuri is expected either Friday or Monday, but I've not had postal conformation yet. Been in the UK I think it was about £3.50 second class. And I didn't see a point in spending the extra just to get it a day or two earlier.

Picture time!! And then a little confession, I broke the thuri trying to get it out of the box. It's repaired now and I've made some pointers to the repair. It was litteraly finger pressure on the side of the stone and it sheared. So I've cleaned and glued it. And it's still got both faces working.

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I've marked out the repair in the last 2 images, I don't think it's going to upset me greatly.

Rock wise I think the thuri is a light green type with 1 corner working off to a light blue. The side with the darker blue is a fair margin harder then the all green reverse. I popped a razor on it last night and the shave was very good, and the polish was fine. I think I have another keeper with the thuri (simply for the fact no one is going to want a repaired stone)!

The coti I think is one of the la grise stones, It feels very hard and glassy. But I don't get to play with it until April.

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Originally Posted by Iceni

Picture time!! And then a little confession, I broke the thuri trying to get it out of the box. It's repaired now and I've made some pointers to the repair. It was litteraly finger pressure on the side of the stone and it sheared. So I've cleaned and glued it. And it's still got both faces working.

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I've marked out the repair in the last 2 images, I don't think it's going to upset me greatly.

Rock wise I think the thuri is a light green type with 1 corner working off to a light blue. The side with the darker blue is a fair margin harder then the all green reverse. I popped a razor on it last night and the shave was very good, and the polish was fine. I think I have another keeper with the thuri (simply for the fact no one is going to want a repaired stone)!

The coti I think is one of the la grise stones, It feels very hard and glassy. But I don't get to play with it until April.

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Nice hones and nice pictures. I love boxed hones. The coticule is more likely one of the Las petas hones. The blue streaks is an indicator. I had one. great finisher slow on slurry.

Nice repair on the thuringer the crack was probably already there if it broke that easily.

Really nice stones Blake!
For slate stones like thuringians, cracks that run through the stones are typical. If the stone dries out for a long time or is exposed to heat or frost, cracks nearly always occur somewhere.
But if the cracks don't touch the surface you are using for honing - who cares. If you ever reach the crack with honing, you simply can move to te other side of the stone or lapp the crack out.

Yeah I think The crack forming where it did and the fact the stone is cut correctly have saved me. It could have been a disaster. Next time I decide to remove the stone from a box I'll take the box apart. I actually did this in the end to remove this stone, Then glued it all back together without the stone. The black foam in the box is just to protect the stone.

I'll keep an eye on it for a few weeks to make sure it doesn't do anything out of the ordinary but otherwise I think it'll be fine. I used "araldite steel" two part epoxy to glue it. Provided the stone doesn't decide to shear somewhere else it should be sorted for it's lifetime. The glue was applied in a thin all over layer, with a little more added where the shear fracture had steps. It was then fitted back together and clamped lightly for 10 minutes in 3 orientations. Face to face, end to end, side to side. Once the squeeze out was dry I cut it all back and lapped it all up again.

Beautiful stones sir. A large light green thuri I was able to test prior to purchasing had surface inclusions. As much as I wanted it, I had to pass on the purchase as it was not suitable for razors.. I do have a nice Y/G with some bark on the backside.
MIke

Very nice stones.

The missus has gone out and I have all day in and alone.... Could you resist the coticule? I couldn't.

Bismarck 6/8 muller classic, finished on a 12K superstone and running at HHT4.

Built a light slurry, And went with what felt right. No lap counting. Straight stroke only, no X's, circles or back and forth strokes.

3 dilute phases got me onto pure water. The stone doesn't auto slurry at all. Then it all went strange, On pure water the stone feels like gravel. Really noisy, Really gritty. So I stopped and looked at the edge. Nothing looking bad other than a sand blasted finish.

So I did another 3 sets on pure water and all of a sudden one spot on one side of the blade started to feel smooth. So I did another 6 sets until the whole blade felt smooth.

After the whole blade felt like I was honing on glass I took it to a plain veg tan strop, no pastes. 100 laps. HHT4, and a very smooth edge.

This rock is really strange, no water undercutting on pure water, Gravel phase, Then glassy. To give a really nice edge. I think I got an easy coti finisher!

The only thing I can think for the gravel phase is a change in attack angle from slurry to pure water. And the edge pushes more into the rock without the slurry. So that stage requires the extra passes to push past that point.

that's interresting, I have a coti laying around which feel like there is a sort of gravel when honing on it using plain water, I actually wrote it of thinking it was no good but now after reading this I think I'll give it another try ;)

Respond to how it ends up working, I can't play with mine now until my birthday. So I can't hone up another razor to see if it was just fluke!

The change in feel was dramatic, so you should be able to tell if it's working after a few sets.

Here is the light green thuri I spoke of earlier in this thread. As mentioned the inclusions rendered it un-usable or “Toxic”. Too bad, maybe more lapping would have worked. It was and is not my stone. Incidentally, I would stack any of my quality Thuringians against my best J-nats any day. It just depends on the steel.
Mike

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