Thread: Does anyone recognize this hone?

paul scrub it maybe, soak it with some simple green so we can see its true colors....

it will prolly need some lapping to get to really sing

....now i have hone envy

it looks like it is a white-ish hone.... which might it narrow down

Originally Posted by biglou13

paul scrub it maybe, soak it with some simple green so we can see its true colors....

it will prolly need some lapping to get to really sing

....now i have hone envy

it looks like it is a white-ish hone.... which might it narrow down

Okay. I'll try that and report back. Actually I think I did try to clean it with some Dawn and plain water but not aggressively.

My very very wild guess is its some kind of ark. i have a #1 norton washita that has similar look which and would fit type of business

UPDATE:
Okay, so I did The Simple Green cleaning. Scrubbed it with a brush and The Simple Green which did clean some dirty looking stuff off of it but didn't seem to change it's appearance very much. I then used a peice of sanding...



whatever you want to call it that's made for sanding drywall that I have used on bellied hones before I had a flattening stone. That didn't really seem to change its appearance much either although it did seem a little smoother... I think, unless it was just cleaner. I should mention that this thing is smoother to the touch and harder feeling than my 12k Sharpton. It's smooth like granite.
So then I decided to use my Norton flattening stone to try to lap it a little and I think it lapped my flattening stone.
Nothing really seemed to change the way it looked very much and it didn't seem to take anything off of it. I have no idea how hard that thing is but the flattening stone is silicon carbide so it has to be harder than that if I got my chemistry lesson right... doesn't it???
I did however take some pictures of it wet which seemed to enrich the colors some. With the water on it if you look at it with the light hitting it from a certain angle it has a sparkle to it, or rather IN it, on all four sides.




I don't know if you can see it from the pictures or not. I also don't know if you can see from the pictures or not but the sides have a striation to them like a trowel leaves on concrete. Somebody mentioned that maybe it's an "ark" which I assume means an Arkansas Stone (again disclaiming my ignorance). I'm pretty darn sure this is a man-made stone but, again... ignorance.
What's harder than silicon carbide, would that leave more than dimond? Certainly that can't be a daimond stone can it?

Hoping some of this means something to somebody. Meanwhile I'm still scratching my head here.
Paul

AMENDMENT TO THE UPDATE:
I went back to look at this stone again after it had dried some and I noticed that it's sparkles even more now that it's not wet which I don't believe I ever noticed before. I turned the stone over and over looking at all the sides and noticed that the one cutting surface did not seem to sparkle like the other one. Now I can see that it's not actually sparkly on all four long sides but only on the one and spilling over onto the top part of the sides adjacent to it. Running my hand over it, I also noticed it (duller side) is nowhere near as smooth. It then occurred to me that I had only run the flattening stone over one side so again I sprayed it with the hose and ran the flattening stone over the other, duller side. On this side the slurry that came up was from the stone and it is a creamy tannish gray. Originally (on the other side) the slurry that came up was from the flattening stone and it was that same dull green. Lapping this duller side with the flattening stone left a much softer more opaque texture to it while the other side that had dried is barely even scratched where I had run the flattening stone over it. So apparently this hone has a honing side and a finishing side if I'm saying that right (once again disclaiming the ignorance). Doesn't it?
I sure hope this rings some bells to somebody because now I'm really intrigued by this thing and being that it belonged to my now late father I would really like to know more about it.
Thanks.
Paul

PS: a little dirty pool here: attaching a picture of my father fresh out of boot camp in early 1944. Figured maybe it would compel some people.

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.

what is the writing on the box?

Originally Posted by CrownCork

what is the writing on the box?

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