Thread: Does anyone recognize this hone?

I have a soft Arkansas that is colored like that.

Well, they say patience is a virtue but it's a very boring one. I've also heard that the west wasn't won on patience. I guess the trick is to know when to jump and when to stand. Since I didn't get advice on what lubricant to use or any more guesses about what it was I decided to jump. I wet it with water and made a slurry on the course side which I never do. I didn't know really what to do so I just winged it by running the pyramid progression with the opposing sides. I found pretty early into it that it seemed a much larger difference between them than the usual 4k/8k but what the heck right? There's only one way to know for sure, damn the torpedos, no guts no glory and all that sort of rot. At the end and after some stropping it didn't look a great deal different through the glass than my sharpest one currently that I honed, stropped and shaved with yesterday but when I did my usual preshave (exactly as usual so as to keep it a control factor) it was not quite there. I did not have time to finish it with the 12k or anything else so I left it for later and finished the shave with another razor.
It seems to me that it needs more finishing so I may stick with the fine side and see if it will polish it out on it's own. I'm not versed enough to try to judge the grit ranges but if it was that or the firing squad I would guess less than 1k...600-700 maybe and 7k-8k...ish...???...I guess. If my life were in the balance but otherwise I'd try not to bet my paycheck on it. Boy that sparkly.side is so hard. I wonder if it could be tungsten carbide...ya think??? It, the sparkly part that is, seems grayish I guess or plain white maybe when the light hits it and makes it shine but not tinged with a hew that I can tell. I'll try to get some good quality close up shots post them and I guess try to lap it and see what the slurry looks like (would that be helpful?) if I can do that without ruining my flattening stone. I mean it didn't look like there was any slurry but that from the flattening stone when I tried it before.
Sure would like to hear some opinions.

Sparkly... may be silica

Experiment with lube. I’ve tried oil, ballistol(mineral oil)/water, water only, soapy water, even dry?

Look at box it will give you clues to past lube...
With out seeing it closer ... I’m guessing oil.

Are you saying you did not finish on smoothest surface?
I doubt a a stone can have a wide range of grit....
Each side could be lapped to different grit
Was finest side possibly burnished, might indicated the finishing side.
I’m testing a ark(ish) with on side lapped to 1200 and one side lapped to 500 .
I have a another stone that that tends load up and it gets super fine when that happens.

With many stones raising a slurry may not be pnecessary, and may increase “grit”

I’m a little confused by last post did you finish on finest side?
With progressively lighter strokes?

What grit is your flattening stone?

Have you checked stone “flatness” with a decent straight edge?

Try testing again with less variables....
Try finishing on finest side, do not raise slurry prior to, try oil, and finish with progressively lighter passes.

Then next test try burnishing finest surface then test again.

Maybe have a more experienced honer hone same razor on it.

If dad said it’s a razor stone i’d Trust that, And work on figuring it out.

Thanks biglou,
I may have gotten a little long winded and gotten abreast of the focus. What I was hoping is by describing the hone and how it looks and performs someone would say, "oh yeah, that's a so and so hone made by what's his face in 19XX or 18XX made out of whatchamacallit. That is an oil/water stone, xk grit on side a. xxk on side b...etc."
I don't know how to do that partial quote with comments in between so I'll just try to cover it all in monologue... briefly. I did use both sides but I did the pyramid progression: 20 laps on side a then 20 on b, 15 on a then 15 on b. 10 on a then 10 on be etc.
Someone suggested cleaning it up with simple green and that helped make it easier to see the characteristics. This stone is absolutely, positivily man made. 100+% sure on that. One side is harder, much harder with a reflective mineral added to the aggregate. Maybe it was how I did it or maybe it was because of the wide variance between the two sides. I'm not well versed.on lapping, burnishing slurries or anything else with hones. Not really sure what grit my flattening stone is. It's a green silicon carbide Norton flattening stone. That's really all I know. I'm trying to figure it all out. Whatever happened the end result was that it didn't leave the razor well polished at the end. I guess I didn't say it right but I can experiment and try to polish it out more.
I wa justs hoping to find out information but maybe I'm at a dead end. I appreciate all your help though. Maybe I should try to take it over to the department of material sciences at UF. At least maybe they can tell me what it's made out of not that I guess any of this really matters. I was just curious about more information on my dad's hone.

It can take lots of digging to find out some of this stuff.

Keep going and let us know if you find anything so then the rest of us don't have to do the digging!

You said your father had a belsaw sharpening business. Maybe a group related to that would be the place to look?

what is the writing on the box?

Originally Posted by CrownCork

what is the writing on the box?

Mel-O-Bit Pasteurized Process Cheese American

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Mel-O-Bit Pasteurized Process Cheese American

lol...A Velveeta Hone

Originally Posted by 32t

It can take lots of digging to find out some of this stuff.

Keep going and let us know if you find anything so then the rest of us don't have to do the digging!

You said your father had a belsaw sharpening business. Maybe a group related to that would be the place to look?

Yeah I've done that and continue to do so. I wish I had the hourly I charge in my profession for all the time I have into searching. He didn't exactly buy a belsaw business. He bought out a guy who owned a sharpening business. Some of what he had was belsaw machines. The rest was an assortment of other things, among them stones (mostly carborundum and other knife sharpening stones) of which this was the only razor related thing.
Dad never used this stone to the best of my knowledge. He bought the business in circa 1974. As he got old he sold off most of his business but he kept this hone for whatever reason. It sat mostly if not totally unused for 44 years, the last few of it in storage unit until I became more interested in razors and pulled it out and dusted it off... literally.

i'm dissapointed that its not stone made my mother nature. (i'm still holding out that it is)

i have a stone that glints on on side (silca?) and is shiny and hard, i lapped to 1200 SiC grit. the other side is rough. just because there is variance doesn't mean its not a natural stone....

unknown stone, with minimal knowledge/experience (no insult intended) will most likely result in poorly honed razor.... i'm optimistic that it is a fine razor hone.... can be made into one

you should try an meet up with someone more knowledgable, and get you fast tracked....