Thread: Another help with hone ID please

They tend to flake smooth like flint

Not always, It depends on how it was chipped and if the stone had any flaws. Not all cherts are knappable or make those nice flake fractures. Inclusions also can change how well the rock flakes. It's why certain sites are well regarded for knaping flint, and flintlock strikers, but the vast majority isn't any good at all.

Those fractures are only every produced by mechanical action as well. Hitting it, dropping it ect. Fire or freezing damage will not produce them.

The rock I have has a small chip that isn't flaked at all, that runs with a natural crack.

Those larger ones could have also been where the natural skin of the rock was, Have a look at my Thornwick images again and look at the skin layer and how it moves about.

This thread on a knapping forum explains it pretty well.

http://www.arrowheadology.com/forums...cked-rock.html

I did see the natural skin, I assumed that was the weathered face. Wind & water do different things than dropping/striking. But usually aren't smooth and even like the backside of that hone seems to be in the photos. I would expect it to undulate, like your Thornwick stone.

Could be I'm just used to the Novaculite from the Oauchita Mountains. Like you say, different quarry, different characteristics.

A bit off topic; Unlike what I used to think of, novaculite isn't just translucent/non porous Arkansas.
It has many forms, the way it flakes can be different, and these flakes themselves can be porous as well, not glass/quartz solid. We have the non porous glass type of stone like the high density Arkansas, the porous Arkansas than too have their own patterns whether flakes or as bigger pieces, the Charnley forest novaculite (Iceni is familiar with the stone as well as the place, there was a very nice thread about the stone a few years ago by him) which is again different, the Llyn Idwal that is unique as well, and the most strange of all, for me at least, the Cretan stone that is basically fused diatomaceous earth but real novaculite too. And strangely, but not really, there was a quarry again in Germany that a stone with a lot of similarities to the Arkansas fine stones was extracted, that had its own unique pattern. And I'm sure there are plenty of other places where novaculite is already used, as a hone or for some other reason, it's an interesting mineral by its nature.
When I first started researching into hones, I thought that Novaculite was an unique mineral from US, but it turns out, it's not all that rare.
As for solid pieces of stone that might look like good, uniform material for honing, there are more than one type of quartz particles, the monocrystalline, cryptocrystalline and possibly other something-crystalline, (I might be wrong on the previous names of crystalline forms, there are too many types and for many types of minerals); some types in SiO2 minerals are famous for being unsuitable for hones as the particles have unwanted properties and even though they appear hone material, they damage the edge. Transparent quartz is one example.
For the stone of the thread, some lapping of the side can prove if it's just dirt, glue, or some interesting pattern of the stone, but if it doesn't interfere with honing, there is no need to be lapped.

Well to be fair it does come down to the pictures. They are not showing a clear give away.

Here's two pictures of some hones I found. First one not so easy to see, and the other shows the stones cleaned, lapped og damped.

One proved to be a swedenstein, but I also got a labeled Escher, a Coticule and a Butterscoth Arkansas hone.

The swedenstein has so far proved to be the best finisher, by the way.

Point is, lap and clean the hone. Use water sandpaper and take pictures again when you are finished.

We can never name the vain or quarry from with the stone came out, but there's a great difference in a novaculite and a slate hone.

I still believe yours is the last...

Regards

Kristian


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