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Does anyone have any insight about whether there's any difference in results on the edge when honing or polishing with different colors of Vermont slate (mottled purple vs red, for example)? Are they simply just different colors and nothing else? How do people generally regard Vermont slate as a hone? Thanks.
A good piece can be truly great and a bad piece can be a doorstop. You don't need slurry and imo they are better on oil or honing solution. Sort of treat it like the french finishers. The black ones I have had can crank out a super sharp edge that shaves comfortably but isn't forgiving, the purple is far and away the most balanced and the green probably the smoothest though it is also the trickiest to use. It's a very hard question though. The hardness even among same colors can vary with these and they are inconsistent in other ways as well. I was lucky in that mine were hand picked for me and cut into bench stones but all bets are off on what you get if you just buy the stuff cranked out for construction. It could either be brilliant or a dud.
The colors are the result of the minerals that stained the rock and its components. What is more important is the size of the particles making up the slate. So, the question is, is there a connection between the colors and the particle size?
Having used quite a few out of the Putney area I find the blacks and dark greens to be a great finisher and reds to be a tad coarser...with all naturals it's a little pot luck. I use a jet black Vermont slate as a finisher and have been very happy with it. The rock is a very pure fine grained mica schist.. very slow
I've visited the VT slate country and tried a few. Purple and mottled have worked well for me with oil. Not as much luck with red from my end. Visually, the purples are similar to certain Welsh slates (19th century miners of VT slate often having arrived from Wales) and French Lunes, and should perhaps be used in an analogous fashion to the Lunes--i.e., being sparing with the strokes if used as a finisher, especially with water.
My pieces are anything but slow