Thread: A Few Mystery Stones...

I haven't used the Goldfisch a lot recently, time to revisit her.

Would be keen to hear what you think!

I finished two razors at the same time; one on the Goldfisch, the other on a (small, mottled black) Escher, and found it at least as good. Which as I say slightly surprised me, perhaps because Thuris feel so lovely to use - like they're caressing the edge, whereas the Goldfisch doesn't, but seemed to get results.

(Both of these stones are quite new for me, so take what I say with a pinch of salt!)

I talked myself into buying this last week on the basis that it was very cheap, and I thought there was an off-chance it might be a Glanrafon, a stone I'd been wanting to try but without spending the $$$ they usually seem to go for when they do come up:



Arrived today, cleaned up, lapped, and I'm pleased as punch :

Well spotted!
I had never heard of those stones: please tell us more.

Righteous!!

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Righteous!!

Pretty cool eh... TBH I didn't ever think I'd get my hands on one; the pretty patterns are usually so easy to spot that whenever they come up on ebay they seem to go for silly money - the last one ended up 10x what I paid (!!!). Mine was from the website of a slightly random vintage tool shop in the UK who don't bother cleaning anything up, so I'm feeling a bit smug about my stone id-ing skillz atm .

[He says before the next five things he buys all turn out to be dirty old SiC!]

Originally Posted by Kees

Well spotted!
I had never heard of those stones: please tell us more.

They're certainly rather uncommon, and I would never have spotted it or known anything about them if I hadn't read through a number of old threads here and B&B, from members like rideon66. So the below is just other people's knowledge, combined with my initial impressions...

They're a kind of very hard slate from Snowdonia in northern Wales, fairly close to the Idwal/Melynllyn quarries - the Glanrafon quarry was just the other side of Mt Snowdon from them I believe. A very interesting feeling stone; kinda silky and as though they're going to be quite soft, but then turn out to be very hard indeed when you try to lap. Not as hard as novaculite, but very hard for slate. A lot of people describe them as feeling almost like a ceramic stone.

Very fine in terms of 'grit' - I've only run one razor across mine quickly, but I'm sure I'll be able to use this as a finisher, as others do. Though if worked with mud, and the surface conditioned to quite a low grit, it also puts a very fine edge on a kitchen knife that retains a good amount of bite and teeth, which is unusual in slates. Perhaps most surprisingly I think it also has the potential to be a very good polishing stone. Again this was only a quick try out on a knife I need to get some low spots out of, but it's pulling a bright, near-mirror on the hagane, with lots of contrast, and without burnishing the cladding. I don't know many non-Japanese stones that can do this kind of thing, and probably none that do it so well.