Thread: Need help with unidentified hone!!

Hey can anyone help me out here? Picked up this unknown rock the other day. Very nice coloring, nice feel, and nice hand fitted box. Kind of a Greyish, olive green stone with some darker speckles. Produces a real nice, milky Grey slurry. Very smooth. Doesn't seem to have too much cutting power, although I haven't really had the chance to experiment with it. Anyone have any ideas???

It kind of looks like a jnat, are the black splotches on the back part of the stone or glue?

There were some jnats imported to the US in the early 20th century, but they're uncommon.

Cheers, Steve

I believe its a part of the stone, but its very hard to tell. Like I said, it does produce a nice slurry similar to a Jnat, but it really doesn't seem to have much cutting power. Of course, I really have no experience with Jnats so I wouldn't know how they are supposed to act anyway. If this is in fact a Jnat, maybe it is a pure finisher. I'll set a nice bevel on something unhoned here soon and see if I can finish it out with this stone....

Well, I have a moderate amount of experience with jnats and and still don't know how they're supposed to act! Every stone has a mind of its own.

I do own jnats with not much cutting power. How does it polish?

Cheers, Steve

I will try to play around with it a bit tonight and see how it polishes. Hopefully to a mirror shine...... I typically use Coticules, so I'm used to plenty of cutting and polishing power in one stone. Still, if it is in fact a Jnat and does have excellent polishing ability then I suppose its a good score...

It is Jnat - i have bought previousely 2 small size Jnats here in my contry .It looks like that there were import from Japan of Jnats of small size .Anyway - your look like Jnat assagi to me .Usualy this kind of assagi have very good cutting power . How do you decide that it have slow cuing speed - did you try it on slury ?????

I did try with slurry, but only one time with one blade that is in pretty bad shape anyway. To be fair, I really haven't had enough time on it to sit here and say that it doesn't cut well. I will find an un-honed blade and see what I can do with it this weekend. I really appreciate the input. Assagi huh, I'll check out some more information on those stones. I haven't had any prior experience with Jnats, so I'm sure it'll take a while before I can figure out how to really use this thing anyway. Great to get some professional opinions though. I love this forum.....

Start testing by taking a shave-ready edge and raising a thin slurry on the stone. Try 40 circles and ellipses followed by 40 x-strokes with decreasing pressure to blade weight, and diluting the slurry to watery. Strop and shave.

Cheers, Steve

Thank you Steve, and thanks to everyone in here sharing knowledge. Like I said, I have been a Coticule guy my whole straight razor life so finally getting my hands on a jnat is awesome but a huge challenge at the same time. If I didn't have this tool to gain this tribal knowledge from all you guys, I would be so frustrated with this stone. I'll try Steve's method tonight and share results tomorrow. I've always wondered if that jnat edge was really as great as everyone let's on..... Hopefully I'll know first hand here soon.

So while I've got your attention I'd like to show off a couple other new stone I picked up pretty cheap. I believe one is a Charnley and the other LI. The LI is carved into the shape of a Paddle along with some carvings in the handle. Pretty cool really, I think at least...