Pike's Lisbon Chocolate Hone
Beeing in the research on some connections between Escher & Pike i found some Literature and Old Pricelists dealing with the Pikes Chocolate Hone. It seems to be a fairly fine stone from the descriptions so i got more interested in it....i only found one reference within SRP here made by A_S. As the thread is already closed i will add the original quote zu the choclate stone here:
"Pike, Grafton County
Owned by the Pike Manufacturing Co. The stones were worked at least as far back as 1825. Fine-grained, highly siliceous mica schists, reportedly the finest of this type found in the world"
Source: http://straightrazorpalace.com/hones...-origin-3.html
As said i did further more research on this topic and found some more sources i wanted to share here.
"At Lisbon, Grafton County, N.H. there occurs a fine grained quartz, mica schist of blueish choclate color, which furnishes a stone known as the chocolate whetstone. Its a medium hard stone and is especially adapted for leather and skinning knives, and it is also used extensively for sharpening cloth cutters tools, kitchen and carving knives" Source: Mines and Quarries 1902 on Google Books
"The Chocolate Stone, quarried at Lisbon is a finer grained then the Indian Pond stone and is made into oilstones, knifestones or fine scythe stones. From 10-15 tons are produced annually. The chocolate stone is not finished by Pike Manufacturing Company, but the manufacture is carried on by contract with the Lisbon parties." Source: Stone Vol. 5 on Google Books
So i found this stone quite interesting, it sound more like a coarse to medium stone, even if some descriptions "fine grained" did made me think it might be a finer one....
Anyboday owned or owns a stone of this type ?
Pike's Lisbon Chocolate Hone
Here is another description i found on an old Pike Information about Oil Stones. Its the german Version from the catalogue from 1902.
http://up.picr.de/25921848ur.jpg
The Chocolate Stone is a fine grained, mica type stone, in a chocolate color. It is softer then the "Queer Creek" and sharpens very fast. The Choclate Stone creates a medium-fine edge and is mostly used for Leather- and Tanningknives. He is often used for Cloth-, kitchen- and carving- and Pocketknives.
Its a stone which fastly creates a medium-fine edge, and its usable with water and oil.
Pike's Lisbon Chocolate Hone
Quarrying and Cutting
Here is another update more precise on the quarrying and cutting of the stones. The Chocolate Stone also named Chocolate Rock could be quarried in much bigger quantities then Arkansas stones could.
At the quarry bigger pieces nearly like a square foot have been placed in wooden frames. These frames were transported to the cutting saw operations.
The cutting element was a steam of water and sand. The size of the sandparticles bought were bigger then the grain of the stone which should be cut. So the stone was scratched away...the saw blade itself was made out of plain band steel and only worked due gravity and the water/sand mixture.
Harder stones fex. Arkansas Stones could be feeded in by their own gravity, the other softer stones like Scythe stones or the chocolate Stone were operated with a positive feed in working with a screw.
The cutting action was very very slow. With around 30 strokes per minute it took 12hours to cut 5inch of stone (Washita). Arkansas stones took about 1inch in 12hours. The Chocolate hone took around 20inch in 12hours.
Pike's Lisbon Chocolate Hone
irregular Sizes
After that there were around 25 freshly cutted slabs. They took out the largest sizes. The smaller sizes were brought to the chipping room were smaller and irregular sizes have been cut. The chipping was mainly done by hand.
The operator worked with a chisel and did cut at the ends of the raw cut stone where the wished end was to get the wanted size.
Cutting the Chocolate Stone
The Chocolate hone was cut with a special machine, a type of a mechanic driven anvil. The stone was placed under the anvil. At the end there was a type of a bigger chisel which was moved down with pressure to cut/chip the Chocolate Hone at the preferred area.
Pike's Lisbon Chocolate Hone
Rough Grinding and finishing the surface
Finishing Arkansas and Washita stones was done with a 8ft. Diameter cast iron disk running at 80rpm. The surface was kept true with a cast iron block. Also here the cutting medium was a mixture of sand and water which was placed on the disk. The stones were held from the operator to get the wanted result, then he collected some stones. When he got so of them ready they were shortly type of "glued" together. Then the ends of this lot was prepared the same way he did with the sides.
