Thread: Natural combo id - help needed

this stone looks like coticule to me

Thanks for the info, maybe it deserves its own thread?

I also checked 'Grinding and honing' and found no mention of a Jaka hone.

Your stone looks pretty similar in many regards, also I got the stone from a seller in Poland, I guess that makes it even more probable that you are right.

It looks like the side 'away from the light band is used for honing on your stone, correct? In mine the lighter side is connected to the light band, and that's the side that gives the better results for honing IME. The stone was well used when I got it and the lighter side was quite dished, so the previous owner must've thought the same.

Does your's produce slurry?

Originally Posted by AnsichtskarteausSolingen

Thanks for the info, maybe it deserves its own thread?

I also checked 'Grinding and honing' and found no mention of a Jaka hone.

Henk Bos was working on a special essay about the Czech hones together with some czech hone and razor enthusiasts. Unfortunately he wasn't able to finish his work. But we have really great and knowlegdeable people in the Czech republik who research the vintage czech hones and maybe we are lucky to hear more of these hones from Stepan aka adrspach, Radek, Martin, Jiri and others!!

The article exists as I did English translation of it for Henk. When time will be right it will come up.

Originally Posted by adrspach

The article exists as I did English translation of it for Henk. When time will be right it will come up.

Looking forward to seeing this!

Sorry for my bad english. I'm from Russia. This Czech black slate, working in the area of 6000-8000 grit. Obtained in the Czech Republic so far, but the quality has deteriorated stones, there are inclusions of pyrite. a couple of years ago, the quality was higher.

From the side it looks liek a WOA and Tam O shanter to me, (I had a Tam with similar patterns to the lighter tone you have side on view.) I have a couple of Czech hones but they dont look like that.

The WOA and TOS stones did not come from the same quarry like coticule/BBW. This stone is a natural combo and doesn't look like a WOA either, so we can safely assume it's not.
It could be the JaKa stone (I have a strip from one, the surface kind of looks like this one but it has "sparkly" particles on close inspection although uniform), but there are hundreds/thousands of slate/shale deposits in Europe. From these even if the primary purpose of stone extraction is decorative slate, many of them contain material that can be used as a hone, and possibly a really good one. We know the 20 or so most famous, but there are a real lot more out there, either waiting, being extracted, or being already emptied with glorious hones decorating floors and roofs. Like the mine of the JaKa stone.

Sorry Vasilis, not original Jaka, Where did you get your stone?

Originally Posted by adrspach

Sorry Vasilis, not original Jaka, Where did you get your stone?

I got it on our meeting at Ardennes, it's a piece 20x2.5x0.5cm, I gave Radek a couple of stones and he gave it to me.