A Few Mystery Stones...

Hello all! A few mystery stones if anyone wants to offer any thoughts / guesses...

Over the last year-ish I've been periodically buying things on UK ebay, for whenever I'd finally be able to come back and visit friends and family. About 25 stones in total, and unwrapping them was very fun indeed! But a few remain mysteries if anyone wants to offer any thoughts or guesses they'd be much appreciated...

I'm not a particular expert on the various types of Purple-With-Green-Bits stone, here are three. The first is soft and quite slow and almost feels like a soft BBW. Second a little harder finer. Third is quite different - very hard, fine and quite fast, a very high quality stone. (I can post more pics of any of these if it'd help, but I'm finding the uploading of them a little tricky, so stopped here):

1.
Attachment 337293
Attachment 337292

2.
Attachment 337294

3.
Attachment 337295

I originally thought this stone was a Charnley, but when lapping it - it clearly wasn't novaculite. This is a very pretty, very hard and fine, sea-green-blue slate. It could possibly be Glanrafon, but it's not exactly like most pictures of them I've seen, and I've never used one before, so can't compare.

Attachment 337296

Attachment 337298

Attachment 337299

This green stone came from someone in Devon whose father apparently used it to finish razors, though given how dished and out of shape it was I'm not quite sure how. It also seems relatively coarse for a razor finisher, no higher than about 5k I shouldn't have thought. Excellent and very fast, it appears to be some kind of cherty-novaculitey thing. Perhaps a particularly funky Idwal...?

Attachment 337306

Attachment 337307


---

That's about it for the mystery stones, I'm relatively sure I know what all the others are. And as I say - any thoughts much appreciated!

Can't see the photos in that last post. That last one does have a Charnley-ish look to it but it also kind of looks like nephrite or jadeite, moreso like nephrite to me. Do you know where its from? I have a couple of nephrite stones and one characteristic of both is that they leave an almost mirror finish on the bevel. Nephrite is a nice finisher for sure.

Ah yes, looks like those last couple of pics didn't upload properly, have edited now so hopefully that works!

---

The green-blue one with the kinda wavy lines came from someone on UK ebay selling her late father's collection of stones. He had some amazing stuff; including at least 10 or 15 Charnleys, which is what made me think this was one when I bid. And though he did have some American stones, cotis, and other stuff, it was mostly UK stones and I'd be surprised if this wasn't British.

I've never used any kind of Jade hone before either, so again can't compare, but I'm 99% certain this is a slate (pic below of the distinctly slate-y underside). It's very hard for a slate, and a true razor-finishing stone, but I guess Jade is harder... (?)

Attachment 337308

Sorry to say I can't see the pic in the last post either but the pics from the previous post are fixed.
Yes, the jade and nephrite are quite hard stones. However they leave an edge that isuch more.skin friendly than novoculite, at least the Arkansas stones.

My c****y old computer strikes again! Let's try now, obviously it's a bit dirty in this pic as I hadn't cleaned it yet, but you can see some pretty slate-y cleavage I think. It also feels like slate; kinda like a Thuri, but not quite as gloriously creamy feedback.

Attachment 337326

And as you can possibly see there are some bits of the stone that have just the slightest reddish blush to them, which also initially made me think CF (but it isn't).

Yep. Definitely "slate-y." I have no other insights but I'm sure someone will chime in.

So last night I properly lapped the final stone in my original posts, the one I thought might be a 'particularly funky Idwal' 5k at the very most, and something interesting came out...

I have a couple of other Idwals, but neither shows something that I'd heard can be distinctive of them - a kind of bubbly appearance to the surface. As I was lapping it became obvious that the slightly weird texture on the surface of the stone was that 'bubbly' effect in quite extreme amounts. Here's a pic after a couple of mins, the stone was dished in the middle, so at this stage I've only lapped through the part at the end, at the top:

Attachment 337353

You can see that lapping it has started to remove the bubbliness, revealing the true surface of the stone below with some typical Idwal black lines and dots.

Here's a picture of the other end with some also-typical-Idwal flinty fissure, you can see that the bubbles are really just very fine, minute, circular surface cracking, which explains why I can lap through them:

Attachment 337354

It also explains why the stone initially seemed much coarser than you might expect from an Idwal; I was basically sharpening on a heavily roughed surface composed entirely of very fine, small cracks.

In the picture below the stone is now flat, some of the bubbles remain particularly in the middle which has had less lapped off it because it was dished, but I can't be arsed to go further. It's very clearly an Idwal:

Attachment 337355

The stone is now completely different in use; it's fine and it's slow, around 10k+, and very similar to a Charnley in feel and use. You could probably finish a razor on this now. Though TBH I'm not sure which version of it I prefer.

I have no idea what causes this, but I suspect some of that bubbly feature might come back over time if the stone isn't kept oiled. I could lap through the bubbles - they didn't go through the entire stone - it seems to me like it's from the surface of the stone drying, to reveal aspects of the structure not normally visible. Anyone else had similar experiences with Idwals before?

.
.
Thanks for posting this. Good pics of lapped hone surfaces are very useful for those of us affilcted by the HAD disease! :)
.
I think you're going to fit in here on SRP just fine. :)

Another one in today. It came from someone in Conwy, which is a small town in north Wales very close to most of the historic quarries, and turned out to be something a little peculiar...

This is a fine-ish sandstone (I think), around 2k I guess, and relatively slow. Slurries easily enough with an atoma and feels quite a lot like a Dalmore or Hindostan in use though finishes a little coarser, but that probably doesn't tell you anything other than it's a fine-ish sandstone.

The stone had been used with oil previously so was probably a lighter shade originally, I'm inclined to think this is a Gwespyr stone. What do we reckon...?

Attachment 337889

Attachment 337890


[Dunno why these pics have come up sideways, and not sure how to change it. Lie down to view them properly.]

Wow, that's a nice looking stone. I have no insights but I'll be watching eagerly. I love sandstones. It's one of the few usable types of naturally occurring stones we have here in Florida other than lots of chert which is normally too included to use for honing. If that's what that is that should be a really good one from the look of it.

The first one might be a Rouge de Salm.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Wow, that's a nice looking stone. I have no insights but I'll be watching eagerly. I love sandstones. It's one of the few usable types of naturally occurring stones we have here in Florida other than lots of chert which is normally too included to use for honing. If that's what that is that should be a really good one from the look of it.

---

Quite cool isn't it! Was pretty dirty when I got so probably wouldn't have bid if I hadn't noticed where the seller was from - I thought it might be an Idwal tbh - but I was the only bidder so nice and cheap :). Having used it a bit last night, I'm pretty certain it is a Gwespyr (which is only about 20 miles from Conwy). Apart from G&H there's vanishingly little info about them, just one guy on B&B who found one after a long search and reckons it's a very good natural bevel setter.

You're lucky to have good sandstone around you - I've tried finding some and making a few in Aus and all the stuff near me is either too hard, too soft, too irregular &c. Quite a lot of sand sand there though so I'll keep looking ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kees

The first one might be a Rouge de Salm.

---

Interesting you should say that; one of the other stones I received at the same time was a Goldfisch Wetzstein, and I understand from some old posts here that general consensus has that as a type of RdS / LaL. I looked at the two side by side the other day, and they're pretty similar looking and feeling, same colour, same slurry &c. I might give them a try together soon to compare, but I think there's a distinct possibility that you're right. Which would be nice, it's a big stone too.

Is RdS sometimes known to have that kind of light green inclusion, like the little 'eye' on my stone? It feels quite hard, not like it's just a bit of yellow coticule that's crept in.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cotedupy

Is RdS sometimes known to have that kind of light green inclusion, like the little 'eye' on my stone? It feels quite hard, not like it's just a bit of yellow coticule that's crept in.

---

Pierre la Lune often has those green inclusions.
https://razorlovestones.wordpress.co...12/lalune_011/

I was thinking LaL as a possibility for stone 2 or 3 maybe(?) though I've no idea how I'd tell the difference between that and Melynllyn. All the stones were from vendors in the UK, so I imagine the latter might be more likely.

(Though 2 and 3 came from the same person selling off her late father's collection, and he had some very high quality stones from all over, so who knows!)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by cotedupy

Quite cool isn't it! Was pretty dirty when I got so probably wouldn't have bid if I hadn't noticed where the seller was from - I thought it might be an Idwal tbh - but I was the only bidder so nice and cheap :). Having used it a bit last night, I'm pretty certain it is a Gwespyr (which is only about 20 miles from Conwy). Apart from G&H there's vanishingly little info about them, just one guy on B&B who found one after a long search and reckons it's a very good natural bevel setter.

You're lucky to have good sandstone around you - I've tried finding some and making a few in Aus and all the stuff near me is either too hard, too soft, too irregular &c. Quite a lot of sand sand there though so I'll keep looking ;)



Interesting you should say that; one of the other stones I received at the same time was a Goldfisch Wetzstein, and I understand from some old posts here that general consensus has that as a type of RdS / LaL. I looked at the two side by side the other day, and they're pretty similar looking and feeling, same colour, same slurry &c. I might give them a try together soon to compare, but I think there's a distinct possibility that you're right. Which would be nice, it's a big stone too.

---

I have both: Rouge du Salm is soft, Goldfisch is harder. Inclusions resemble the ones in the Goldfisch.

Check this thread out:
https://sharprazorpalace.com/hones/1...tzstein-2.html

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kees

I have both: Rouge de Salme is soft, Goldfisch is harder. Inclusions resemble the ones in the Goldfisch.

---

Ta! Yeah my larger one is certainly fairly soft, and my Goldfisch is one of the small 5 x 1.25 ones, so doesn't have any green type inclusions, that I can see.

I actually used the Goldfisch properly for finishing yesterday, and was rather impressed. It's not a particularly lovely feeling stone to use, but the results were quite impressive. Do you like them?

I'm also going to be trying the large stone again this evening, though not for a razor - I don't have any of my normal kasumi stones with me, and need to finish a yanagi for someone. I suspect that because it's quite soft it might work quite well, BBW can certainly polish quite nicely with mud.

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:

Attachment 338005

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

Attachment 338006

Attachment 338007

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

Attachment 338027
Righteous!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PaulFLUS

Attachment 338027
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!]

Quote:

---

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.

Attachment 338031

Attachment 338032