Thread: ID 2 slate hones

Hi all

New guy here. Great forum. I've been reading alot here lately, and decided to join the fun.
I have a background in woodworking, so I'm used to sharpening tools, and that's how I realized that stones are awesome.
I started buying at fleamarkets when the prize was right. Now I have a few... I also discovered that most of them weren't really that suited for tools, or they were rather slow, and I bought some ceramic stones (Bester, Sigma) to speed things up. Then I was left with all these hones that got no use, so recently I bougth some old beat up razors and now I'm here. I've been at it for a couple of months now, so I'm still a newbie, but I'm slowly improving my skills.


I'm looking for ID and opinions on these two hones. They are both fine and rather fast, but I dare not put a grit number on them.

Dry


Wet


Slurry


Close up top hone


Close up buttom hone


Thanks for reading.

Best regards Thomas

Nice hones and welcome to SRP TKL.
Well there are a lot of slates around and your hones look like slates. So far so good. They don't show the typicals of thuringian slates, so I don't think these are thuringian hones. That's all I can really say so far.
But a lot of slates show very good performance in honing razors, not all as really fine endfinshers, but some are useable in the progression instead.
Simply enjoy your find and have fun!

I cannot add anything but would like to ask if you can feel those inclusions, in the middle of the second hone, during the honing stroke?

Thx hatzicho. I dont think they are thuringians either. They don't look like any I've seen by looking online. They actually have a few tiny sparkles in them, and they give a sound when I run the blade over it. Like it "sings", a term I borrowed from woodworking. Not sure if it applies or makes sense to razors. I'm still at the level of bevelsetting, where I use a Bester 2K, so I'm looking for the next step. These two seems to cut fast with slurry, so my uneducated newbie guess is that they're probably not finishers.

Utopian, the inclusions does give a little more drag or restistance, but I don't think it has any effect on the steel. I use a microscope at 150X, and haven't noticed anything.

As far as the inclusion goes, that is a rather fine looking one. It seems that anything that impacts the feel (an aberration) of the hone, makes honers jump out of their skin here, as those usually mean something not good.
Good luck.

Thank you all for your input. I will keep practising and maybe one day discover what they are truly capable of.

As already mentioned from the others we talk about slates. What i might further add is that it shows similarities the Muller Water Grindstones
sometimes show. I also got another one from those from a Friend and compared this with the Muller Water Grindstones, it was the same material...those are for me the only slates ive seen with these clouded black inclusions appearing bigger or smaller depending how they were naturally formed...

check the pictures here:
https://razorlovestones.wordpress.co...slatefrommarc/

Thanks doorsch. They look very similar. Mine has a bluish tint, especially in artificial light. I live in Denmark so a german hone could easily find it's way up here.